THE LATE LATE Toy Show was the most-watched programme on Irish television in 2017, with an average audience of 1.3 million viewers.
The second highest viewed programme in Ireland last year was the All Ireland senior football final between Dublin and Mayo. The match, aired on RTÉ Two, raked in a total of 1,141,200 viewers.
This was closely followed by the Fifa World Cup qualifier match between Republic of Ireland and Denmark. 1,038,600 people tuned into RTÉ Two to watch it.
Sport accounted for 11 of the top 20 programmes on Irish television in 2017, with three rugby Six Nation matches making the list too.
Interestingly, the weather drove record daytime audiences as people turned to television news to keep up to date with Storm Ophelia’s path last October. As a result, RTÉ News at One came in at number 15, with 698,000 viewers.
RTÉ Nine O’Clock News hit the list in sixth place, with 845,700 viewers, and RTÉ Six One News made it to 13th place, with 717,400 viewers.
Other devices
Tam Ireland, who compiled the figures, commissioned IPSOS to carry out a study of viewing on other devices in 2017.
The survey found that, on average, Irish people claim to watch three hours and 55 minutes of audio and video content per day.
83% of this viewing time is spent viewing on a television, while 17% of viewing is done on other devices such as laptops, smartphones and tablets.
Housekeepers and those aged over 55 were the heaviest viewers of tv last year, with the latter viewing an excess of four hours of TV each day.
“It is fantastic to see the power that television continues to have in grabbing the nation’s attention,” Jill McGrath, CEO of Tam Ireland said.
“It seems that the more choice consumers have on tv, the more they watch. Tv dominates as a medium and is the driver of so many conversations on social media that it truly is the super medium.”
Tam Ireland oversees an audience measurement system for the television advertising industry.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say