'EastEnders' tops Christmas Day ratings

EastEnders was the most-watched programme on Christmas Day, according to early figures.



The episode, which saw Stacey (Lacey Turner) leave Albert Square, drew an average of 11.4m (43.2%) for BBC One in the 8pm hour. The figure is up more than 500k on the soap's Christmas Day performance last year.

To form, BBC One performed strongly throughout primetime. At 6pm, the Doctor Who special pulled in 10.3m (39.8%), up 300k on last year, then a festive edition of Strictly Come Dancing - won by John Barrowman - drew 9.4m (34.4%), outdoing Coronation Street's 9m (33.1%) for ITV1.

The Royle Family pulled in 9.9m (38.6%) in the 9pm hour, down 300k on last year, then at 10pm, Come Fly With Me - the new comedy from David Walliams and Matt Lucas - launched to an impressive 10.3m (41.1%).

Elsewhere on ITV1, an hour-long episode of Emmerdale took 7.2m (27.9%) at 6pm, then after Corrie, All Star Family Fortunes appealed to 4.7m (17.8%). Poirot averaged 4.2m (17.3%) between 9pm and 11pm.

The most-watched film of Christmas Day was BBC One's screening of Shrek The Third, which put in 7.2m (41.9%) from 3.10pm.

The Queen's Speech, broadcast at 3pm on BBC One and ITV1, reached a combined live audience of 8.8m (52.4%), up around 700k year-on-year.

Well, I'm not a soap lover (Oh that sounds bad!) and thought that TV on Christmas day was abysmal. The best programme I found was a Sky news production about the salvage of Campbell's bluebird. (OK, technically not Christmas day as it was after midnight).

My rating to the main channels, 1/10 must try much harder.

Except for Doctor Who I didn't watch a single programme on Christmas Day and that was only because I knew friends were going to ask me what I thought about it.

Am much more interested in the repeat of last Easter's Jonathan Creek ("The Judas Tree") on New Year's Eve as many of us missed it first time around.