Strictly Come Dancing, Planet Earth II and I’m a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here! all drew huge audiences on Sunday night as viewers stayed at home to watch television.
Strictly posted its largest audience of the series so far, drawing in 10.8 million to its results show as former model Daisy Lowe left after Ed Balls once again avoided the dance-off.
The former Labour shadow chancellor’s take on the Psy song Gangnam Style was a big hit on the web as well, with the video of his latest dance attracting more than 2.5m views on Facebook and another 228,000 on YouTube.
Planet Earth II again benefited from following Strictly, adding 1.4 million viewers to its record-breaking debut to hit a total audience of 10.6 million. The first episode last week was the most watched natural history programme for at least 15 years.
On ITV, the launch of I’m a Celebrity ... immediately after the David Attenborough-narrated documentary attracted 10.7 million viewers – almost a million more than last year’s opener – and a peak audience of 11.7 million. It was the second most watched programme on ITV this year, beaten only by England’s Euro 2016 loss to Iceland.
The new series features ex-Manchester City and Chelsea footballer Wayne Bridge and former Countdown co-host Carol Vorderman.
The performance of the Ant and Dec-fronted programme will be heartening for ITV, which has seen another of its big entertainment shows, The X Factor, perform poorly against Strictly. Sunday night’s results show drew an audience of 6.4 million up against Planet Earth II in the 8pm slot.
The show’s immediate future appears safe, however, as ITV has signed a deal with creator Simon Cowell to keep showing both The X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent until 2019.
