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UK TV: 2011 Top 20

More Brits watched The X Factor finale than the Royal Wedding this year.

The 13.7 million viewers who tuned into the final of The X Factor have made the show the #1 broadcast on British television this year -outstripping the marriage of Kate Middleton and Prince William.

An audience of 13.5 million tuned in to watch the wedding of the year.

But there are still some big guns to come before the end of the year, including Christmas specials for Doctor Who, Downton Abbey, EastEnders and Absolutely Fabulous, which could topple X Factor.

Top programmes (all channels, best episode, duration 10+ mins, consolidated)
Rank      Channel              Date     Programme Title             000s      Share

1              ITV1      11/12/2011        The X Factor results       13,689  44.8

1              BBC 1    29/04/2011        The Royal Wedding (BBC)            13,590  62.8

3              BBC 1    17/12/2011        Strictly Come Dancing   12,997  49.3

4              ITV1      04/06/2011        Britain’s Got Talent results          12,950  49.4

5              ITV1      13/11/2011        I’m a Celebrity – Get Me Out of Here!    12,784  43.1

6              ITV1      14/02/2011        Coronation Street           12,757  46.5

7              ITV1      06/11/2011        Downton Abbey              12,451  41.2

8              BBC 1    03/01/2011        EastEnders         11,416  37.5

9              ITV1      24/10/2011        Doc Martin         10,919  36.6

10           BBC 1    29/04/2011        BBC News          10,762  51.0

11           BBC 1    18/03/2011        Comic Relief      10,261  39.6

12           BBC 1    18/11/2011        Children in Need             10,239  37.2

13           BBC 1    17/07/2011        The Apprentice: the final             10,239  37.5

14           ITV1      09/01/2011        Dancing on Ice  10,231  35.4

15           BBC 1     15/08/2011         New Tricks          9,866     36.9

16           BBC 1     02/11/2011         Frozen Planet    9,717     34.1

17           CH4        08/02/2011         Big Fat Gypsy Weddings                9,710     32.8

18           BBC 1     14/05/2011         The Eurovision Song Contest      9,685     38.6

19           ITV1       13/01/2011         Emmerdale         9,590     36.0

20           ITV1       29/05/2011         Scott & Bailey    9,405     33.3

Source: The Guardian

13 Responses

  1. Not all of us uk viewers watch all this reality crap!! The royal wedding was on loads of channels and the soaps are dire!! Give me rescue special ops and sea patrol anyday. Though I think the Australian ratings system is stupid as your channels seem to axe great shows if the ratings aren’t beating the next channel!

  2. @craig h & alex. Although that may be true, consider how high the audience share for BBC1’s coverage was at over 60%, whereas the X factor results had a share less than 50%, suggesting that there was a larger audience during the X-factor results than the royal wedding

  3. To be fair, the royal wedding was on about 6 channels in the uk and that figure seems to only be the BBC1 audience, so if you added up all channels it was broadcast, then many more people would have watched the wedding than X-factor finale

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