TV Viewing Summary – W/E 29/12/96

The BBC’s Only Fools and Horses trilogy which began on Christmas Day heads the top programmes listing for the Christmas week. The comedy billed as the ‘last ever’ episodes gained in popularity with the final episode, shown on Sunday 29^th, taking the top spot with 24.35 million viewers – representing a consolidated share of viewing of 72%, and a consolidated TVR of 45 amongst individuals 4+. Comparatively ITV’s Living Daylights shown at the same time only achieved viewing figures of 8.02 million (15 TVRs).

Throughout the Christmas period the BBC achieved much higher viewing figures than ITV – with 2 episodes of Coronation Street being the latter’s only contribution in the Top 10 programmes. Christmas Day in Albert Square proved far more popular that in Coronation Street, with Eastenders watched by nearly 7 million more viewers (17.05m).

The following table shows Christmas Day peak hours on both ITV and BBC1:

Overall hours and share of viewing have changed very little year on year, although unsurprisingly ITV faired worse than others with hours of viewing down 49 minutes and share down 2.1% points.

MediaTel subscribers can access the latest television data in the Television database.