Leo and Micheal’s State of the Nation addresses have smashed RTE ratings records.
An incredible 1.75million people tuned in to watch Taoiseach Leo Varadkar on March 17.
And the next most watched was Taoiseach Micheál Martin on October 19 with 1.57million viewers.
The Covid speeches are hitting record ratings and grabbing more viewers than recent All Irelands, Six Nations matches and even beating RTE’s Holy Grail: the Late Late Toy Show.
The huge numbers are a sign of how engaged and fascinated the public has been with politics and Covid this year.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s address on March 17 brought the country to a standstill and outperformed the record-setting Toy Show of last year.
1,747,300 watched Mr Varadkar warn the country of Covid lockdowns on St Patrick’s night.
And the ratings roof was hit again last month when Taoiseach Micheál Martin had his biggest day in the spotlight.
On October 19 Mr Martin outlined the return to lockdown under Level 5 in the new roadmap, and 1,572,500 viewers tuned in.
The numbers have been phenomenal and may have provided a much needed boost to RTE coffers as well because the higher the ratings the more a broadcaster can charge for ads.
Recent years have seen the Late Late Toy Show dominate the ratings, with a record 1.35million watching on the night last year, with another 220,000 on RTE Player afterwards.
The All Irelands and other major sporting events like the Six Nations are the other programmes that regularly feature in the most watched lists every year.
But the new armchair favourites are the Taoiseach’s speeches.
An RTE source explained that it is impossible to estimate accurately what the most watched programmes ever have been.
This is because the way we have watched television has changed.
And that in the past there were often only two to four channels to watch, which meant everyone basically just watched whatever was on.
The playing field is completely different now with people choosing to record programmes, watch them on demand, or on a variety of different devices.
There is now vast competition with both foreign channels and streaming services vying for our eyeballs’ attention.
This makes the whopping viewership numbers for the taoisigh addresses all the more impressive and is testament to the country’s continuing healthy fascination with current affairs.
However, RTE’s Audience Research team have stressed “it is not possible to compare these figures as some are for whole news programmes of various durations, others for just sections of them and for March 17th a stand-alone item (Ministerial Broadcast)”
Taoiseach speeches ratings toppers
Leo Varadkar
Date, Programme, Time, Duration (minutes) RTÉ One 000s, online video streams
12-Mar, RTÉ News Special, 1050-1244, 114, 137.9, 144,000
17-Mar, Ministerial Broadcast, 2100-2111, 11, 1,592.3, 155,000
24-Mar, RTÉ News, 1600-1738, 98, 410.7, 190,000
27-Mar, RTÉ News Special, 2028-2107, 39, 829.2, 272,000
10-Apr, RTÉ News Special, 1603-1700, 57, 491.1, 143,000
1-May, RTÉ News: Six One, 1801-1923, 82, 794.4, 99,000
15-May, RTÉ News, 1559-1658, 59, 237.3, 50,000
5-Jun, RTÉ News Special, 1400-1528, 88, 240.8, 84,000
25-Jun, RTÉ News: Six One, 1801-1857, 56, 358.9, 5,500
Micheál Martin
Date, Programme, Time, Duration (minutes), RTÉ One 000s, online video streams
15-Jul, RTÉ News: Nine O'Clock, 2102-2134, 32, 466.6, 6,500
4-Aug, RTÉ News: Nine O'Clock, 2101-2130, 29, 488.2, 8,000
7-Aug, RTÉ News: Six One, 1803-1811, 8, 475.8, 37,000
18-Aug, RTÉ News: Six One, 1804-1811, 7, 393.6, 16,000
5-Oct, RTÉ News: Nine O'Clock, 2104-2111, 7, 1,017.50, 93,000
19-Oct, RTÉ News: Nine O'Clock, 2105-2115, 10, 1,368.50, 204,000
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