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Home»BBC»BBC figures reveal festive hits and flops
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BBC figures reveal festive hits and flops

14 January 2022

The Tourist, Death in Paradise and Call The Midwife drew audiences to BBC TV during the Christmas and New Year fortnight, as the public broadcaster reveals what the nation was watching over the holidays.

Each year there’s a passionate debate over the quality of Christmas TV. While seasonal stalwarts Call the Midwife and the Strictly Christmas special still attracted millions of viewers, former ratings hit Mrs Brown’s Boys were nowhere to be seen in the top 20 BBC programmes, continuing its decline in popularity.

The New Year fireworks at midnight was BBC TV’s most watched moment of the festive fortnight, followed by episode one of The Tourist, starring Jamie Dornan (above), which launched on BBC One and iPlayer at 9pm on New Year’s Day.

Boxing Day hits

The first ever Christmas special for Death in Paradise on Boxing Day enjoyed an average audience of 8 million. Around the World in 80 Days and A Very British Scandal, also launched on Boxing Day, scored highly. The annual Doctor Who special on New Year’s Day only just secured the 20th slot in the top 20.

EastEnders was the most streamed ‘brand’ on the iPlayer with episodes of the soap streamed 15.9 million times between 21st December 2021 and 3rd January 2022. However, the Christmas Day episode only reached number 16 in the top 20 with just 4.7 million viewers.

Audience data is based on live and on-demand viewing within the first seven days. As the BBC’s seasonal shows are still on iPlayer, a fuller set of on-demand viewing figures covering +30 day figures as well as all episodes of series that started over Christmas and New Year won’t be available until February.

Charlotte Moore, BBC’s Chief Content Officer says:

“2022 on the BBC has started with a bang with record viewing across Christmas and New Year on BBC iPlayer. Millions of people chose to watch our unrivalled range of box-sets and Christmas specials live on our channels, or binge on-demand across the festive season – paving the way for the BBC’s centenary, a landmark year that will look forward and celebrate British creativity across the whole of the UK.”

BBC top 20

21/12/2021-3/1/2022. Live and on-demand (up to seven days after original broadcast)

Where there are multiple episodes of a programme, only the episode with the highest rating is shown.

RankEpisode Average Audience 
1Happy New Year Live!10.5m
2The Tourist – Episode 18.9m
3The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast – 20218.3m
4Death In Paradise – Christmas Special8m
5Call The Midwife – Christmas Special 20217.9m
6Strictly Come Dancing Christmas Special – Series 19 – Christmas Special7.4m
7A Very British Scandal – Episode 17.1m
8Around The World In 80 Days (2021) – Episode 16m
9BBC News at Six O’clock – 20/12/20215.7m
10Michael Mcintyre’s Christmas Wheel – Series 2 – Christmas Special5.5m
11Superworm5.1m
12Blankety Blank – Series 1 – Christmas Special5m
13Four Lives5m
14The Repair Shop At Christmas 20214.9m
15BBC News – 29/12/20214.9m
16EastEnders – 25/12/20214.7m
17The Weakest Link – Episode 44.5m
18Shaun The Sheep: The Flight Before Christmas4.5m
19Ghosts – He Came!4.5m
20Doctor Who – Eve Of The Daleks4.4m
Average Audience: BBC All-Screens+7 data combines and deduplicates BARB data and internal BBC iPlayer stats to report on all viewing across linear BBC TV and BBC iPlayer during the first seven days following transmission of an episode plus pre-TX viewing. The metric is ‘average audience per minute’ in line with standard BARB data. Data source: BBC

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RXTV info | Covering the reception and distribution of UK terrestrial TV (Freeview), cable, satellite and connected TV services for users and installers.

Freeview changes

20th July 2022

  • Channel 69 | CBS Justice [COM6/ArqB] has been delisted/removed.
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