Boris’s address seen by 28m
THE Prime Minister’s historic address to the nation was watched by a record-breaking 28million viewers – beating the Opening Ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics.
It means more than 40 per cent of the population watched the speech – in which Boris Johnson put the UK in an unprecedented peacetime lockdown – as it aired across the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Sky News, according to trade magazine Broadcast.
The figure surpasses those for the London Games, which peaked with a live audience of 27.3million.
It is thought the address is the most watched broadcast on British TV since the modern measurement system was introduced in 2002. It came as Mr Johnson received overwhelming public backing for his coronavirus lockdown announced in the speech.
YouGov found 93 per cent of Britons support the measures unveiled by Number 10, with just 4 per cent opposed and the rest unsure.
Women were more likely to strongly support the plan than men, while older people were more likely to give their backing than the young.
But the public is split on whether they think the new police powers will be sufficient to deal with the crisis. Some 39 per cent of the 2,788 polled believe the threat of fines will be enough to prevent the public from breaching the rules – but the same proportion were not so confident.
A separate poll for YouGov found twothirds of the public believe they will find it easy to stay at home for three weeks, while 29 per cent said it would be hard.
It came as Mr Johnson had a taste of remote working as he chaired his weekly Cabinet meeting via video call from Downing Street.
Mr Johnson saw his favourability ratings soar ahead of his address to the nation on Monday night, rising to plus 20 from minus 2 the previous week.