‘Happy New Year Live!,’ ‘The Tourist’ and ‘The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast’ Top BBC Record Festive Viewership

Naman Ramachandran
·2 min read

“Happy New Year Live!,” with an average audience of over 10.5 million, the first episode of “The Tourist (8.9 million) and “The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast” (8.3 million) drew record viewer numbers to the BBC between Christmas and New Year, according to BBC All-Screens+7 data.

The data, which reports on all viewing across linear BBC TV and streamer BBC iPlayer during the the period Dec. 20 – Jan. 4, also reveals that Christmas specials of “Death in Paradise” (8 million), “Call the Midwife” (7.9 million) and “Strictly Come Dancing” (7.4 million) performed well, alongside new dramas “A Very British Scandal” (7.1 million) and “Around the World in 80 Days” (6 million).

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iPlayer set a new festive record of 141 million programmes streamed during New Year week (Dec. 27, 2021- Jan. 3, 2022), up 6% on the same week last year. The New Year has also started positively, with programs streamed 143 million times last week.

During the 14-day festive season from Dec. 21 – Jan. 3, the best day for iPlayer was Jan. 2 with 22 million streams in total, when the box set of thriller series “The Tourist,” starring Jamie Dornan, bowed. Long running soap “EastEnders” streamed 15.9 million times during this time, making it the most streamed brand on the BBC.

BBC chief content officer Charlotte Moore said: “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 U.K.”

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