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RTÉ TELEVISION BROADCAST 19 OF THE TOP 20 PROGRAMMES OF 2012

 

RTÉ Television scored highly with Irish audiences in 2012 as just-released consolidated figures for the Top 20 programmes of the year show that nineteen of the top twenty programmes broadcast by any channel available in Ireland during the year were on RTÉ Television.

The Late Late Toy Show once again scooped top spot with an average audience of 1,453,000 viewers.  The second most-watched programme of the year was RTÉ Sport’s Euro 2012 coverage of Republic of Ireland v Croatia in June with 1,236,000 viewers and the Mrs Brown’s Boys Special on Christmas Day hit third spot with 1,068,000 viewers.

It was a very good year for RTÉ Drama as Love/Hate’s series finale in December became the fourth most-watched programme of the year with 1,034,000 viewers tuning in to see Darren’s betrayal by Nidge and his shock execution.  Fair City also made the Top 20 with an episode from January which saw 648,000 viewers tune in to see what happened in the aftermath of the revelations of Tommy and Jo’s affair.  And Raw hit No 15 with the series finale in February as 704,000 viewers tuned in to see Pavel’s tragic demise.

Irish audiences loved RTÉ’s big entertainment programmes in 2012 as The Late Late Show made a second appearance in the Top 20 with the 50th Anniversary show in June hitting fifth spot with 1,028,000 viewers.   Mrs Brown’s Boys made a second appearance in the list with the finale of the second series in February which was seventh with 909,000 viewers.  The Eurovision Song Contest in May came in at tenth place with over 771,000 viewers.  The Voice of Ireland had two spots on the list with 725,000 viewers for one of the blind auditions in February and 718,000 viewers for the results show in April, putting those shows in twelfth and thirteenth position.  The Rose Of Tralee final had 695,000 viewers, putting it in sixteenth place.

Sport again proved very popular with Irish audiences with five of the Top 20 programmes of the year.  As one might expect, the GAA All Ireland Finals featured strongly with The Sunday Game Live coverage of the All Ireland Senior Football Final (Mayo v Donegal) hitting sixth position with just under 975,000 viewers.  The Sunday Game Live coverage of the All Ireland Senior Hurling Final (Kilkenny v Galway) came in at No 8 with just over 900,000 viewers.  RTÉ Sport’s coverage of the RBS 6 Nations (Ireland v Wales) came in at No 20 with 648,000 viewers.  And RTÉ Sport’s coverage of Katie Taylor’s history-making win at the London 2012 Olympics was the eleventh most-watched programme of the year with 754,000 viewers.

As ever Operation Transformation proved to be a ratings winner as the series finale attracted 673,000 viewers to make it No 18.

As might be expected, RTÉ News also featured in the top programmes of the year with 778,000 viewers tuning into the RTÉ Nine O’Clock News on February 12th and 675,000 viewers the RTÉ Six-One News on January 3rd , putting them in ninth and seventeenth spots respectively.

Glen Killane, Managing Director RTÉ Television, said, “We are delighted to see that the vast majority of Irish viewers continue to choose RTÉ Television.  These figures demonstrate clearly that our investment in delivering high quality programming for Irish audiences is paying off.   We always strive to put our viewers at the heart of what we do and with so much choice out there for our viewers we appreciate the loyalty and support we continue to receive from the Irish public.

ENDS

11th January 2012

*Source: TAM Ireland Ltd/Nielsen TAM. Ranking is based on best episode of shows/series of 15+ minutes duration broadcast between 1 January 2012 and 31 December 2012, on any television channel, available in Ireland at any time.

** All figures are Consolidated National Individuals 4+. The Consolidated audience is the sum of the live viewing plus viewing recorded and played back within 7 days.

 

For more information please contact: Karen Fitzpatrick, Acting Communications Manager, RTÉ Television, T: 01 208 2667, E: karen.fitzpatrick@rte.ie, M: 086 814 9290

 

Pictures for all programmes referenced available for download on the RTÉ Presspack:  presspack.rte.ie