The bad weather was a boon for UK broadcasters with all those people staying at home able to watch TV on Monday the 2nd of February. As a result, all TV viewing audiences yesterday were HUGE. 

News audiences in particular, almost doubled the usual level, with the One O'Clock news on BBC1 gaining 5.2m viewers (that is usually what the Six O'Clock gets) compared to 3.2m last Monday.

At 1300 last Monday, around 13% of the population were watching TV compared to 21% yesterday. Even at 9pm, audiences were higher with 49% of the UK population viewing, compared to 44% last week (around 2.5m additional viewers).

Both BBC1 and ITV1 benefitted. Regional news in particular did really well with 9m total viewers and the BBC's regional news programmes at 6.30pm collectively gaining BBC1's second biggest audience of the day after Eastenders.

Both BBC1 (Who do you think you are - Rory Bremner) and ITV1 (Whitechapel) did really well last night with audiences of 6.3m and 8.1m respectively between 9pm and 10pm.

For more information on this and other Media Insights please contact Julia Lamaison on 020 7890 3937

Source:BARB