‘Late Late Toy Show’ comes out as Ireland’s most watch programme in 2021

'It's an oldie but a goody,' RTÉ bosses will surely be saying to themselves as The Late Late Toy Show came out on top as the most watched programme on Irish television in 2021.

The show is a classic on the Irish television calendar and never fails to generate endless buzz amongst both children and their live-tweeting parents. This year's edition was watched by an impressive 1.7 million people.

Coming in second place was the tense All Ireland Football Final between Mayo vs Tyrone. It was a big year for sports fans with the Euros also taking place last summer - the Italy vs England and England vs Denmark matches make up the third and fourth spots on the list respectively.

Rounding out the Top 5 was Meghan Markle's scandalous sit-down interview with talk show legend Oprah Winfrey.

According to new data from TV audience research company TAM Ireland/Nielsen, we were voracious consumers of television last year. The average Irish adult watched two hours and 47 mins of TV every day which adds up to a total of almost 20 hours a week.

The vast majority of the most-watched broadcasts were sporting events, however a few other shows did manage to break through. The RTÉ Six One News on January 5 took in an impressive 798,000 viewers, making it the seventh most watched broadcast of the year.

This was likely driven by parents and children around the country tuning in to learn if the government planned to close schools for the month of January due to Covid-19.

RTÉ's gangland drama Kin took in a very respectable 686,000 viewers in September, the highest for a drama all year.

Not far behind it was the opening episode of the long awaited new series of Reeling In The Years. The premiere, which covered the year 2010, attracted 653,000 viewers making it the 17th highest watched programme.

Mrs. Brown's Boys Live came out as the highest-watched comedy broadcast after the special took in over half a million viewers back in November. Funny man Tommy Tiernan also rounded off the Top 25 with an episode of his popular RTÉ talk show which was watched by 546,000 people on April 3, 2021.Featured Image Credit: RTÉ

Topics: Ireland, Ireland