By Simon Cable
Last updated at 7:34 AM on 27th December 2010
When it’s cold out there, all you want to do is snuggle up in front of the fire and watch TV.
And as temperatures dropped as low as -18.2c (-0.8f) in some parts, giving us the coldest Christmas Day on record, that’s exactly what we did.
A peak audience of 27.8million switched on their set that day – the highest audience for almost a decade.
Most-viewed: An hour-long Christmas Day edition of EastEnders saw 11.4million viewers tune in to watch Stacey Branning exit Albert Square
The figure is up three million from last year – and is the highest Christmas Day audience since 2001, when a peak of 27.9million viewers was recorded. It means that at one point, almost half the population tuned into primetime shows.
Once again, it was the BBC which offered the most popular fare, providing eight of the top ten programmes.
More than ten million tuned in to see the Doctor Who Christmas special.
But the most popular show of the day was an hour-long episode of EastEnders. An average of 11.4million watched Stacey Branning exit Albert Square. The Strictly Come Dancing Christmas Special also proved very popular, gaining an average audience of 9.4million.
Meanwhile, the Queen’s speech was seen by 6.5million.
Coronation Street was the most watched ITV1 programme, drawing an audience of nine million, making it the sixth most-watched show of the day.
But Emmerdale was the only other ITV1 show to make it into the top ten with 7.2million viewers – up two million on last year’s Christmas episode.
Although BBC1 showed all the top five programmes, the channel’s audience share was slightly down from previous years, registering 30.4 per cent overall throughout the day, compared with 31.3 per cent last year and 34.2 per cent in 2008.
That figure has been put down to the growing number of digital channels.
The BBC’s director of vision, Jana Bennett, said: ‘I’ve been very proud of all the programming across the BBC this Christmas.’ And BBC1’s controller, Danny Cohen, said: ‘I’m delighted to see that BBC1 was so popular on Christmas Day.
‘With flying sharks on Doctor Who and festive glitz from Strictly, we aimed to offer something for everyone on this special day.’
Old favourite: Doctor Who drew an average 10.3million viewers - with 11.5million tuning in at its peak
One of the BBC's biggest successes was the debut of Matt Lucas and David Walliams's new show Come Fly With Me, which was the second highest rated show of the day
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