Abdication rumours help Queen claim Christmas Day TV ratings throne
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Version 0 of 1. In the end there was no abdication, but the unlikely speculation that the Queen was about to step down from the throne helped the monarch’s traditional message to the Commonwealth to the top of the Christmas Day TV ratings. The Queen’s annualThe broadcast had a combined audience of 7.8 million viewers on BBC1 and ITV, more than half the viewing nation at 3pm on Christmas Day, just beating BBC1’s bawdy sitcom Mrs Brown’s Boys to the top spot. A further 45,000 people saw the broadcast on Sky 1. The Queen’s pre-recorded message, in which she chose reconciliation as the theme after a year that saw divisions over Scottish independence and the 100th anniversarycentenary of the start of the first world war, was the only one of the top 10 programmes not to lose viewers year on year. Mrs Brown’s Boys, which was the most watched programme on Christmas Day last year with 9.4 million viewers, had 7.6 million this time round (a 32.2% share). EastEnders, the BBC1 soap that once dominated Christmas Day ratings, came third with 7.5 million viewers ahead of the Strictly Come Dancing Christmas special, with just under 7 million, and Call the Midwife, with 6.8 million, both on BBC1. The top 10 was dominated by the BBC, with the penultimate episode of Miranda Hart’sthe sitcom Miranda seen by 6.7 million people, a 27.6% share, and the Doctor Who Christmas special seen by 6.3 million. The first stand-alone ITV’s Coronation Street was seventh, with 6.6 million viewers; Julian Fellowes’ ITV drama Downton Abbey was in ninth spot, with 5.8 million; and Emmerdale was 10th, with 5.7 million (23.7%). The Queen’s annual Christmas message is unusual in that it is carried by a number of channels, including BBC1, ITV and Sky News. Stripping out the combined ratings, its biggest audience was on BBC1, with 5.7 million viewers. The message’s audience was the smallest for the Christmas Day No 1 spot, at least in the modern era. Its overnight audience was very similar to last year, when it also had a total of 7.8 million viewers. But it was the only one of this year’s top 10 not to lose viewers year on year. Overall, audiences for the most popular TV programmes on Christmas Day were down across the board. Doctor Who, in which Peter Capaldi’s Time Lord met Santa Claus, played by Nick Frost, was down 2 million viewers on last year, when the festive special was watched by 8.3 million, boosted by Matt Smith’s farewell in the lead role. Other big fallers included ITV’s Downton Abbey, down 800,000 viewers on last year’s 6.6 million, and Coronation Street, which attracted 1.3 million fewer viewers from its audience of 7.9 million in 2013. The slump in audience numbers is a further sign of the fragmentation of TV viewing. As well as the proliferation of channels in the digital era, the last few years have seen the rise of online providers such as Netflix, maker of Kevin Spacey’s House of Cards, and on-demand viewing via personal video recorders and platforms such as the BBC iPlayer. The rise of time-shifted viewing – watched after the programme’s initial broadcast – means the so-called “overnight” audience accounts for a smaller proportion of the programme’s total viewing than it once did. But it remains an important industry indicator. Critics may also seize on the declining ratings as evidence that Christmas TV is not as good as it once was. There was certainly a familiar look to this year’s lineup, with much of the top 10 unchanged since 2012, apart from the occasional appearance by Caroline Aherne and Craig Cash’s BBC1 sitcom, The Royle Family. The BBC, which chose not to combine the cumulative audience for the Queen’s speech, said BBC1 had the top five most watched programmes on Christmas Day. “It’s fantastic to see millions of viewers choosing BBC1, with the top five most popular shows on Christmas Day,” said the channel’s controller, Charlotte Moore. “Audiences tuned in for an incredible range of quality programmes from drama, comedy and entertainment; with Mrs Brown’s Boys taking the top spot for a second year running.” Elsewhere, Channel 4’s alternative Christmas message, delivered by the British Ebola survivor Will Pooley, was watched by 583,000 viewers at 3pm. The Disney film Frozen had 911,000 viewers for its first showing on Sky Premiere, with another 411,000 watching a second showing later in the day. Channel 4 jumped on the Frozen bandwagon with an hour-long special about the film watched by 1.5 million people at 8pm. BBC1, which traditionally dominates Christmas Day TV, had a 29% share of peak-time viewing, between 6pm and 10.30pm, ahead of ITV’s 22.8%. BBC2 had a 5.5% share, behind Channel 4’s 6.4%. Channel 5 had a 2.9% share (all of the commercial channels include their timeshifted “+1” channels).ITV played its festive trump card on Christmas Eve with the free-to-air premiere of the latest James Bond film, Skyfall. It had 7.1 million viewers, a 31.5% share, beating BBC1’s children’s adaptation, The Incredible Adventures of Professor Branestawm, in which Harry Hill made his BBC1 acting debut, watched by 3.6 million viewers. |