Buckin’ hell, Mrs Brown tops Christmas charts again

Buckin’ hell — Mrs Brown has done it again.

RTÉ yesterday revealed that the Mrs Brown’s Boys Christmas Special, entitled ‘Buckin’ Mammy’, was the most watched programme in Ireland on Christmas Day — the third year in a row that Brendan O’Carroll’s comic creation has topped the festive ratings.

An average viewership of 832,000 tuned in to see Mrs Brown get over another Christmas, while the movie Bridesmaids was the second most viewed programme on Christmas Day with an average audience of 455,700. Brendan O’Carroll’s show had almost 44% of the total audience share at what is a prime time viewing slot.

It marks a double victory for Mrs Brown — in Britain the Christmas special also topped the ratings, with 9.4m people tuning in, representing an audience share of 35.5%.

Third place in the Irish Christmas Day ratings was taken by the festive edition of Fair City, again on RTE One, while Coronation Street on TV3 was the fourth most watched programme on the day.

RTE dominated the ratings battle on Christmas Day and filled the top 10 positions on Christmas Eve, when the most watched programme was the Six One news, with more than 500,000 viewers.

The enduring appeal of old favourites was also illustrated by Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory — although not in the top 10 on Dec 24 it was the most watched film of the day across all channels with a peak of 210,400.

Another enduring favourite, the Father Ted Christmas special, was the most-watched programme on Christmas Eve by adults aged 15-34 across all channels, followed by the Mario Rosenstock Christmas special at 10pm in second place.

TV3 yesterday announced the episode of Coronation Street, featuring the long-time character Sunita Alahan, was the most watched programme on the station in 2013, with 629,000 viewers.

While its ratings did not approach that of the Late Late Toy Show on RTE, TV3’s Christmas Toys, presented by Alan Hughes, attracted 352,900 viewers. The station’s growing sports schedule was also reflected in the year’s most watched programmes, with 442,800 people tuning in to see Mayo beat Donegal in the All Ireland Senior Football quarter-final and 422,400 viewers watching Real Madrid knock Manchester United out of the UEFA Champions League.