UK TV: 2011 Top 20
More Brits watched The X Factor finale than the Royal Wedding this year.
- Published by David Knox
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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
1Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â BBC 1Â Â Â 29/04/2011Â Â Â Â Â Â Â The Royal Wedding (BBC)Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 13,590Â 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
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- Tagged with Absolutely Fabulous, Doctor Who, Downton Abbey, Eastenders, Royal Wedding, The X Factor
13 Responses
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!
13.7m?! Multichannelling has seen the numbers drop. When I grew up in the UK, Eastenders and Coronation St would jostle for #1 with around 21m per week!
@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
Ten Bucks Ch9 have today commissioned a local version of Big Fat Gypsy Weddings…LOL
Go Emmerdale!!! LOL
The Royal Wedding was televised on more than one channel. In total more than 20 million watched it.
Masterchef UK should be in the top 10!!!
Yeah, noticed that too davodavo. If we had better shows I’d say it’d be the same situation.
@davodavo…Where are these alleged programs that you speak of?
Mostly Reality and soaps….Give me sport any day!
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
They seem to have a better coding system aswell!!
We have heaps of sport and news in the top 20, they actually have programs!
The Royal Wedding was during the day – many would have held parties or been at events to mark the occasion – which means realistically, more would have watched than X Factor.