Picture this, you come home after a long day at work in your native country of Britain, fish and chips tucked safely in their brown paper parcel. You kick off your shoes, make yourself a cup of builder’s tea (black tea, 1-2 sugars and a splash of milk – anything else will spark a controversy), and you flick on the TV to watch some of your favourite British shows.
But what are the 10 most watched UK TV shows of all time? Which iconic broadcasts pulled in and held the attention of those fickle British audience members, and how did they pull off such a feat? The following list, and its corresponding viewer numbers below, is comprised of British TV shows as cited by the BARB (Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board).
#1: EastEnders
Clocking in at number 1 on the 10 Most Watched UK TV Shows of All Time list is the nationwide soap opera, EastEnders. The show has been running on BBC 1 since 1985 and follows the gritty everyday lives of locals in a fictional East London borough. The show climbed to the top BARB spot after only 8 months on the air and has managed to stay there with its shocking storylines, contrastingly relatable cast, and its clever portrayal of real-life situations.
Enders, as the locals refer to it, has generated impressive numbers over its run time of 40 years, but none so much as the episode originally broadcast on 25th December 1986 in which Den Watts gave his wife Angie divorce papers to sign. The episode acquired 30.15 million views so you can imagine what everyone was probably talking about in that annoying working gap between Christmas and New Year’s.
The brilliant timing of this particular storyline ended up being a catapult to pull in new hooks and keep the show standing as one of the juggernauts of British entertainment production. Just look at the viewer numbers (28 million) for the follow-up episode to this dramatic stand-off that aired on 1st January 1987!
#2: Coronation Street
Another soap opera? It’s almost like Britain has a type. Coronation Street offers a different flavour of soap opera to EastEnders, though. While EastEnders focuses on the more dramatic hits of contemporary storytelling, including delving into some controversial topics, Coronation Street is more focused on the relationships of its characters in a more suburban working-class setting. The show has been running since 1960 and plays out in a fictional town in Manchester. A 65-year-old show deserved to be on the 10 Most Watched UK TV Shows of all time list.
The show’s most viewed episode, according to the BARB, was the one in which Hilda Ogden leaves Weatherfield. It aired on ITV (Granada) on 25th December 1987 and generated 26.6 million views. I think it’s safe to say that Britain was watching a lot of TV in the late 80s. The show puts a lot of emphasis on kitchen sink realism and the strong relatability of its working-class characters, a formula that has seen it through 60 insane years of broadcasting and has firmly cemented the show as a staple of British culture.
#3: Only Fools and Horses
One cannot think of this show without getting a nostalgic trickle of warmth at remembering the moment that Del Boy and Rodney emerge from an alley on Halloween dressed as the shortest Batman and the tallest Robin in the world. Though this might be the most notorious moment in the series, it was the episode in which the Trotters finally became millionaires that generated the most views.
The episode, titled Time on Our Hands, aired in December 1996 and accumulated a whopping 24.35 million views. It was supposed to be the beloved sitcom’s finale, but creator John Sullivan wrote three follow-up episodes after this to explore just what happened to the Trotters after they achieved their long-standing dreams of getting rich quick.
#4: The Royal Variety Performance
Before Britain’s Got Talent, before The Voice or Pop Idol or any of those other deeply entertaining shows giving real people with real talents a chance to shine, there was the Royal Variety Show. Fourth on the 10 Most Watched UK TV Shows of All Time list, this is an annually televised variety show held to raise money for the Royal Variety Charity. King Charles III is a lifetime patron of this endeavour, and members of the Royal family attend this event to showcase their support, opening the event by entering to be seated and being treated to a rendition of God Save the King.
In 1965, the Royal Variety Performance had a staggering 24.2 million viewers, which is an astonishing feat overall, but given the time period and the population density of Britain at that time, it is even more impressive. The show included performances by the likes of Dame Shirley Bassey, Peter Cook, and Dudley Moore. Therefore, it deserves its place in the list of the 10 Most Watched UK TV Shows of all time.
#5: To the Manor Born
Another sitcom for the 10 most watched UK TV shows of all time, this one packs a different punch to the likes of Only Fools and Horses. The show tells the tale of a stuffed aristocrat who is forced to sell her country estate after the untimely death of her husband. Audrey Forbes-Hamilton then moves into the smaller lodge house on the property to continue to watch over the grounds and the new owner.
To the Manor Born was well received by the general public, and it is speculated that some of that success was due in part to a strike that took place on ITV that essentially shut the station down for a month and a half. By the time ITV was back up and running, To the Manor Born had secured itself a solid fanbase on BBC 1, and the finale episode aired in November 1979, pulling in 23.95 million views.
#6: Panorama
If you know the UK, you know anything to do with the Royal family is going to get some attention. In 1995, Panorama, the current affairs documentary show, interviewed one of the most popular Royal family members of all time, Princess Diana. The interview covered a particularly coveted subject, the relationship of the Princess with her husband, Prince Charles (now King), and covered the reasons for their separation. Thus, became one of the 10 Most Watched UK TV Shows of all time.
22.7 million people tuned in within Britain, but the worldwide total views for this interview are estimated to be somewhere in the 200 – 300 million range. It was such a massive scoop that the National Grid supposedly reported a 1’000 Megawatt surge of power in demand for the program.
#7: This is Your Life
Any true Brit should be able to recall the infamous jingle that played at the beginning of our #7 for the 10 Most Watched UK TV Shows of All Time. This is Your Life was a biographical documentary that would record the important memories and moments in a person’s life and go through it with that person on screen after surprising them. Eamonn Andrews hosted and was considered the face of the program until his death in 1987, when Michael Aspel took up the torch to allow the show to continue.
The Lord Mountbatten episode aired in April 1977 and raked in 22.22 million views. As the first member of the British Royal family to be interviewed on This is Your Life, it’s not surprising to see these sorts of numbers, and the man’s life was a fascination. Fighting in wars, climbing the ranks of the military, and honeymooning in Hollywood with his beloved Edwina Ashley, Lord Mountbatten’s life was certainly an expertly chosen one to portray to draw in that all-important audience.
#8: The Benny Hill Show
Comedy, now, to grace the archives of the 10 Most Watched UK TV Shows of all Time. The Benny Hill Show ran from 1955 – 1989 and was mainly comprised of sketches that Mr Hill wrote himself, a mixture of slapstick, mime, double entendre, and parody. The true genius of the show could be seen in the immaculate comic timing and in the risque material that had British audiences spitting out their precious tea with laughter. Benny Hill received several awards for his work on the show over the years, including the BAFTA Television Award for Best Writer and, later, a Rose d’Or.
Cinema: The Vintage Years was the most-watched episode of this light-hearted entry, clocking in at 21.67 views. It features a particularly humorous section in which two passengers meet on a boat and, through a series of botched edits, their conversation sounds much ruder than it probably is in reality. The segment is particularly noteworthy for showing off Benny’s knack for comic timing and encompassing British humor at its finest.
#9: Dallas
Back in November of 1980, all anybody could talk about was the thrilling mystery of ‘who shot J.R. Ewing?’. The first American show on this list, this story of a friction-fueled set of Texan families ignited British intrigue and imagination. It was a commentary on American wealth, sex, and power struggles between individuals and spanning generations. The eventual marriage of Pamela Barnes to Bobby Ewing would tie the two warring families of the series together, but it was Bobby’s brother, J.R., who began to be the focus of the show.
The episode entitled A House Divided, depicting the mystery of who shot J.R., raked in those all-important views which peaking at 21.6 million in the U.K. In the episode, Season 3’s finale, no less, J.R walks out of his office only to be shot twice by an unseen assailant, and fans of the series went nuts. Today, there would be threads all over Reddit, Twitter would be on fire, and there would be several conspiratorial YouTube commentaries on the matter. In 1980, it was mostly a word-of-mouth phenomenon, and doesn’t that just put into perspective how impactful this story was?
#10 The Eurovision Song Contest
Eurovision is a foundational part of May-time television in any British household, so it’s no wonder it makes a spot on the 10 Most Watched UK TV Shows of All Time list. It’s almost a game. You grab a drink of choice (and no, it’s not usually as tame as tea), grab a friend or a family member of choice and enjoy the excellent though sometimes quite strange entries that get to make their mark for their country in the Eurovision competition as the fantastic commentator gets progressively more drunk as time goes on. It’s a wonderfully fun way to bring in the summer.
1973 saw the UK represented by Sir Cliff Richard, though the competition was eventually won by Anne-Marie David for Luxembourg, and that year saw the highest ratings for the show at 21.56 million viewers. The contest came down to a three-way standoff between Britain, Spain, and Luxembourg, with the numbers being nail-bitingly close.
The Television Sensations
Britain has a lot to offer by the way of television. With soap operas, sitcoms, comedy sketches, and variety shows, the population of Britain has quite a diverse viewing palette to go with their fish and chips at tea time. It’s interesting to see how viewership has changed over the decades, which television programs remained in the hearts of the people, and why. Overall, the viewership statistics paint Britain as a realist nation that prefers to connect to its own people through human interest stories as much as possible.
With the introduction of streaming services and the broader prospect of shows available through VPNs and the like, it will be interesting to see how that viewership diversifies and changes in the UK as time marches ever onward. What will remain the same in Britain, however, is that fish and chips in brown parcel paper, the cup of builder’s tea – you controversial cretins, and a jolly good time with a favorite show after a long day at work.
