Guess who’s the Queen of festive TV ratings!
SIXTY years on from her first televised Christmas message, the Queen has topped the Christmas Day TV ratings – as viewers switched off juggernauts including Strictly Come Dancing and Bake Off.
Her traditional message, which this year addressed terrorist attacks, the Grenfell Tower fire and Prince Philip’s retirement, was watched by 7.6million across BBC1, ITV and Sky. It was the only show to break the 7million mark.
The next most popular was Mrs Brown’s Boys, which strikes a very different tone.
The show brought 6.8million viewers to BBC1, up half a million from last year.
Mrs Brown’s Boys is an Irish sitcom written by Brendan O’Carroll, who plays the title character dressed in lurid knitted cardigans. The series takes place in Mrs Brown’s home and sees her meddling in the lives of her six children. The show has high viewing figures but O’Carroll’s performance as the foul-mouthed matriarch has been criticised by reviewers who claim it fails to match other Irish comedies such as Father Ted.
Amid an overall decline in TV audiences compared to 2016, Katie Derham’s victory in the Strictly Come Dancing Christmas Special was watched by 700,000 fewer people than Melvin Odoom’s win last year.
ITV’s festive instalment of Coronation Street was also one of the biggest losers, losing a million viewers since last year.
And Channel 4’s first Christmas edition of The Great British Bake Off was seen by just 2.8million, down from 6.3million when it was on BBC1 last year.
Those watching on catch-up are not included in the figures. Although BBC bosses were celebrating dominating the top ten with nine BBC1 programmes, critics will point out one was a news slot and they relied on six long-running shows.
And, despite the much-hyped arrival of Jodie Whittaker, Doctor Who did not build on its 2016 audience, winning only 5.7million viewers.
Meanwhile, the harrowing storylines of Call The Midwife and EastEnders may have been behind dwindling audience numbers. The hour-long Christmas Midwife, watched by 6.34million, featured a difficult birth in a caravan, where the baby appeared to be stillborn.
Yet ten minutes later, once many viewers had been reduced to tears, the baby miraculously started crying from inside a suitcase and was found to be alive. Catriona Ogilvy, founder of The Smallest Things charity – which supports families of premature babies, wrote: ‘Not everyone has a #ChristmasMiracle and worry that today’s episode of #CallTheMidwife offer families false hope after the death of a premature baby.’ The Christmas instalment of EastEnders was accused of being the ‘gloomiest ever’ by some of its 6.29million audience, after characters Lauren and Abi Branning fell from a rooftop.
The Queen’s Christmas Day message attracted 700,000 more viewers to BBC1 than last year, perhaps due to the recent royal interest, Prince Harry’s engagement to Meghan Markle.
Demonstrating changes to the annual broadcast, the Queen included a clip of her 1957 speech. She said: ‘Back then, who could have imagined that people would one day be watching this on laptops and mobile phones, as some of you are today.
‘But I’m also struck by something that hasn’t changed. That, whatever the technology, many of you will be watching this at home. We think of our homes as places of warmth, familiarity and love; of shared stories and memories, which is perhaps why at this time of year so many return to where they grew up.’
‘Viewers reduced to tears’