Christmas day on RTÉ we were treated to a family style schedule with the animated Movie “The Incredibles” and “Harry Potter Order of the Phoenix” running back to back. This four hour segment delivered a viewing share of 18% for all Housekeepers with Children watching TV at this time in multi channel homes for RTÉ1. The main competition during the afternoon came from non commercially opted out channels like SKY Movies, Watch, Dave, Hallmark etc who pulled in a combined viewing share of 34% for Housekeepers with Children.
RTÉ unfortunately had to share viewers to “The Incredibles” with the BBC who rolled out their transmission an hour later in the day.
The evening time on Christmas day is usually ruled by the soap operas where traditionally someone is murdered or has a surprise wedding! This year was no exception as Eastenders ran an hour long special which culminated with Archie Mitchell lying face down on the floor in a „Whodunit‟ type of situation. Over 52% of all Housekeepers with Children in Republic of Ireland were tuned in, but the viewing was again split with BBC1. RTÉ1‟s viewing share was 31% and BBC1‟s was 21%. Traditionally, BBC1 wouldn‟t have such a high share for Eastenders, but because Coronation Street was running in the UK from 7-8pm the BBC delayed the start by 5 mins which would have suited the Republic of Ireland viewers who tuned in to Coronation Street on TV3. Coro‟s big storyline revolved around the Molly and Kevin affair and the revelation that his wife Sally may have cancer. TV3 delivered a viewing share of 28.5% for housekeepers with children which is a very respectable share going up against Strictly Come Dancing Christmas special on BBC1 and Toy Story on RTÉ2. The young women 15-34 were torn between Coronation Street (20% viewing share) and Strictly Come Dancing on BBC1 (17% viewing share).
RTÉ1‟s Christmas special was Pat Shortt‟s „Mattie‟ (Ireland‟s answer to Simon Pegg‟s Hot Fuzz). This replaced the annual Killinaskully Christmas special from previous years. 32% of all Individuals in multi channel homes viewing TV at this time tuned in – . this equated to over 600,000 National viewers and highlights the importance of local home produced programming to the Irish market. This was the third most viewed programme of the Christmas day across all the terrestrial channels coming after the Six and Nine O‟Clock News (both on RTÉ1).
Keith Barry‟s Deal or no Deal Christmas special on TV3 pulled in a valiant effort of 134,000 viewers up against the combined RTÉ1 / BBC1 simulcast of Eastenders. TV3 will surely be happy with this figure.
On New Year‟s Eve, the All Ireland Talent Show Results on RTÉ1 hosted the official countdown to 2010. This was viewed by over 497,000 Individuals. TV3 transmitted the movies Kisses and Moulin Rouge which accompanied The Graham Norton Show in-between. Kisses pulled in a very respectable 137,000 viewers and Graham Norton pulled in 128,000 which is very strong up against RTÉ1‟s bumper home produced line-up and out-performed its competition on RTÉ2.
RTÉ won the Christmas Day viewing battle in 2009. But both RTÉ and TV3 should take great delight in the fact that, on occasions, Terrestrial TV is outperforming the combined viewing share of hundreds of non-opt out commercial offerings including Sky Movies, Dave, Watch, Hallmark, FX and More 4.
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