Len gets a ten! BBC and Strictly win the Xmas ratings war
THE BBC may have lost the Bake Off and said farewell to Strictly judge Len Goodman – but it seems it has got at least one reason to celebrate this year.
The corporation has comprehensively won the Christmas Day TV ratings war, claiming eight out of the top ten most popular programmes.
With an average audience of 7.2million, the Strictly Come Dancing Christmas special was the most-watched show on December 25 for the first time ever.
In second place was The Great Christmas Bake Off, with an average of 6.3million viewers, followed by Mrs Brown’s Boys in third, with 6.1million.
The only other contenders to BBC1 – which also had Call The Midwife in fifth and Doctor Who in seventh – were the ITV soaps Coronation Street in fourth and Emmerdale in ninth.
Meanwhile, the Queen’s Christmas Broadcast on BBC1 came in eighth place, with 5.2million people watching her deliver an upbeat message, reflecting on the achievements of ordinary people.
When the audience numbers for her speech on both ITV and BBC were combined, it was the most watched programme for the second year running.
The traditional speech – which was broadcast simultaneously on BBC1, ITV, Sky One and Sky News – was watched by a combined 7.7million people on the BBC and ITV.
The figures are slightly up on last year when 7.5million tuned in to hear Her Majesty speak.
In the peak hours between 6pm and 10.30pm, BBC1 averaged 6.3million viewers, compared with ITV with just 4.2million average viewers.
And nearly a third of TV viewers tuned into Goodman’s final turn as judge on Strictly Come Dancing, with a peak of 7.6million viewers at one point.
Having been on the programme since it was first broadcast in 2004, the 72-year-old bid an emotional farewell as he handed out ‘tens from Len’ to each of the six celebrity dancers on his last ever show. The ratings success on Christmas Day follows a recordbreaking series for Strictly, which had its highest viewing figures ever with a series average of 11.1 million viewers.
Last year, the show was beaten into second place by Downton Abbey, which topped the list with 6.9million viewers watching the period drama’s final ever episode.
Also saying goodbye was Bake Off, which came second in the list with 7.2million Britons watching the first Christmas edition, which achieved a 34 per cent audience share.
Yesterday saw the broadcast of the second Bake Off Christmas episode – the last time the series will ever be seen on the BBC. Chetna Makan, from series five, triumphed as Mary Berry, Mel and Sue signed off for the final time before the show moves to Channel 4. Reflecting on the win, director of BBC Content Charlotte Moore said: ‘BBC1 entertained the nation on Christmas Day with a fantastic range of high quality shows.’
And while for some, Christmas is the perfect time for a film or two, the only blockbuster to make the top ten this year was Disney classic Frozen. Across the day, BBC1 averaged a 23.9 per cent audience share, compared to 18.7 per cent for ITV.
Not only did the BBC top the Christmas Day ratings, it also impressed the critics too.
The corporation’s lavish thriller The Night Manager, starring Tom Hiddleston, was named by Radio Times as the best television programme of 2016.
The annual poll saw critics name their ten favourite shows of the past year. The other programmes to make the list were Line Of Duty, Happy Valley, Fleabag, War And Peace, The Missing, The Crown, Planet Earth II, National Treasure, and The Great British Bake Off.
‘Entertained the nation’