BBC One takes top ten Christmas Day ratings

The Beeb have taken the overnight ratings victory…

With endless trails, performers from the show popping up to talk about it across the BBC and ITV, it was no surprise that the final, final, final – for now – Gavin and Stacey topped the Christmas Day rating for 2024.

The alleged last ever episode of the comedy drama took the top spot and was watched by 12.3 million viewers, beating their last Christmas special five years ago and making it the biggest Christmas Day overnight since 2008. Another well promoted series, being the idents for the festive period on BBC One, Wallace and Gromit new feature length film Vengeance Most Fowl came in second with 9.4 million.

ITV, having given up providing any real lure to the channel several years ago for Christmas, failed to make the top ten, for the first time since the network went to air in 1955. However, for the Beeb it was BBC One’s biggest share on Christmas Day since 2007.

The broadcast of King Charles III’s Christmas Speech, this year produced by Sky News, saw one million viewers tune to it on ITV1 while just over five million were royally watching on BBC One.

Charlotte Moore, BBC’s Chief Content Officer:

“Christmas Day on the BBC brought people together in their millions and saw Gavin and Stacey triumph. Ruth Jones and James Corden created a magical finale that fans will treasure forever. Their exquisitely written comedy creation is a show all about family, love and joy and it proved to be the unmissable TV event of the year. I’m very proud that the line-up across the day was a showcase for the very best in British storytelling, and caps off an exceptional 2024 for the BBC with increased market share against the competition both local and global.”

The ratings are good news for the corporation following yet another year of inappropriate behaviour on Beeb premises making the news thanks to revelations about Jermaine Jenas and Gregg Wallace, and the guilty verdict on former pervert news reader Huw Edwards.

For ITV1 the goodbye episode of Coronation Street featuring Helen Worth as Gail Potter/Tilsley/Platt/Hillman/McIntyre/Rodwell/Chadwick pulled in half its usual figures with 2.5m turning on, Emmerdale did equally spectacularly disastrous with 2.1m, as Will suffered a fatal heart-attack as Kim watched on. Maybe too much of a bad thing this year has seen viewers look for alternative entertainment on Christmas Day, sick of the endless social issues, murders, fights and crime offered up in the Yorkshire Dales and Weatherfield.

The ITV1 soaps aspire to have the quality storytelling and production of EastEnders, but never quite manage to pull it off, if Gail had been a Walford character she’d have been the centrepiece of the episode, and week leading to it. It was however Cindy Beale at the heart of their drama with a tale of secrets, affairs and blackmail – all the traditional soap storytelling – pulling in an impressive 4.32 million for its second episode offering of the night, its first outing in the early evening also drew in viewers with 3.98 million.

To round-up how bad the ITV soaps did; a repeat of Bullseye from last week was almost level rating with them and Coronation Street drew the same number of viewers as the ITV Evening News. Everything, right into the early afternoon on BBC One, also battered their ratings.

The BBC One top ten

The ITV1 top Christmas Day Ratings