Only Fools And Horses tops chart of most-watched TV events in UK
BBC sitcom Only Fools And Horses has topped a new chart of the most-watched programmes in the 80-year history of British television.
Just over 24 million people tuned in for the episode broadcast on December 29, 1996, in which David Jason’s Del Boy finally got rich after auctioning an antique watch.
It is the biggest audience ever recorded for a single transmission of a TV programme in the UK.
A total of four episodes of Only Fools And Horses appear in the top 20, along with favourites such as Morecambe And Wise, Coronation Street and the Royal Variety Performance.
But there are no episodes of EastEnders, and nothing from the past 15 years.
The chart has been compiled by the Press Association to mark the 80th anniversary this week of the start of television in the UK.
The BBC launched the nation’s first regular TV service at 3pm on November 2, 1936, broadcasting live from from Alexandra Palace in north London. Since then, television in Britain has grown from one channel to more than 300, and the way we receive TV has moved from an aerial on the roof to underground cables and online.
But while there are now more ways than ever to watch television, the PA’s chart suggests the days of record audiences have been declining since the 1980s.
A total of eight programmes in the top 20 were broadcast in that decade, compared with four from the 1990s and just one from the noughties: an episode of Only Fools And Horses shown on Christmas Day 2001.
The oldest programme to appear in the chart is an edition of the Royal Variety Performance transmitted by ITV on November 10, 1963, which featured a performance by The Beatles.
Light entertainment dominates the chart, with three-quarters of the places filled by comedies, variety shows or quizzes.
Other programmes include the 1995 Panorama interview with Diana, Princess of Wales, and the 1980 episode of US soap opera Dallas that revealed who shot oil tycoon JR Ewing.
The chart also boasts some surprising entries, such as an episode of The Benny Hill Show from 1979.
One notable omission is EastEnders, however. Although the BBC soap has sometimes claimed audiences as high as “30 million” these figures were never for individual broadcasts and calculated by adding together the original transmission plus repeats.