The BBC and ITV dominated the top 10 most-watched titles across all UK channels and services last year, figures from audience measurement company Barb Audiences have revealed.
According to Barb’s four-screen viewing data for 2022, the Queen’s Funeral Service was the most-watched title last year with 26.54 million viewers across four screens and more than 50 channels.
This was followed by ITV1’s coverage of the FIFA World Cup 2022: England v France match with 16.08 million viewers across TV set, PC, tablet and smartphones.
The BBC took the lion’s share of the rest of the top 10 most-watched titles last year with seven other titles including King Charles’ first Christmas day address and New Year programming, while ITV had one more title in the list with the opening episode of I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!.
The most-watched SVOD title of last year was Netflix’s Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery attracting 6.7 million viewers within seven days of it debuting on the service on 23 December 2022.
This fell outside the top 30 most-watched titles across all services and channels based on seven-day viewing for broadcast and SVOD titles most-watched programme per series.
UK streaming households decline slightly
According to Barb’s Establishment Survey data for Q4 2022, the number of households with a SVOD service in the UK decreased from 19.54 million in Q3 2022 to 19.42 million in Q4 2022 (-0.6%).
The number of households with a Netflix or Now subscription declined by 0.7% and 7.6% respectively quarter-on-quarter.
A total of 17.15 million homes had access to Netflix in Q4 2022, while 1.88 million homes had a subscription to Now.
UK households with a subscription to Amazon Prime Video remained steady, with 13.11 million in Q3 2022 and 13.12 million in Q4 2022.
Apple TV+ and Disney+ both gained subscribing households quarter-on-quarter.
There were 1.69 million households subscribing to Apple TV+ in Q4 2022, a jump of 21% on the previous quarter.
Meanwhile, Disney+ UK subscriber households went from 6.98 million in Q3 2022 to 7.28 million homes in Q4 2022, an increase of 4.3%.