Blue Lights was the most-watched TV programme in Northern Ireland last year.
Some 378,000 viewers tuned in for the first ever episode of the BBC’s Belfast-set police drama — accounting for almost half of all people in NI watching TV at the time of broadcast, according to a new report by Ofcom.
Second was an episode of I’m a Celebrity.
Local viewers’ appetite for sport also featured prominently, with two big rugby matches among the top 10 most-watched programmes in 2023.
In fourth place was UTV’s coverage of Ireland vs England in the Six Nations Championship, while in sixth place was Ireland’s narrow defeat to New Zealand in the Rugby World Cup quarter-final.
Hannah McClean with Katherine Devlin in Blue Lights
The figures revealed that people in Northern Ireland consumed four hours and 30 minutes of video content a day last year, most of which (two hours and 43 minutes) was spent with broadcasters such as the BBC, UTV and others.
Time spent on video-sharing platforms, such as YouTube, accounted for 45 minutes of average daily screen time. Viewers in NI spent, on average, 33 minutes per day watching subscription/advertising video-on-demand services such as Netflix.
The figures, however, expose a generational divide in viewing habits, with older people watching more broadcast TV. The over-54s watched more content than any other age group — an average of five hours and 27 minutes per day, up by 4.2% since 2022.
Those aged 16-24 watched the least – an average of 28 minutes per day, down 8.6% since 2022.
The number of households using subscription services rose by 2%, with 71% using at least one subscription service at the start of this year, up from 68% last year.
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People in NI like using TV and radio to access news, with local radio remaining very popular, accounting for more than 60% of total radio listening.
Meanwhile, 53% of people aged 16+ viewed national/regional broadcast news per week, compared to 40% for the UK overall.
Television sources were the most popular choices for news about NI. Just under two in five people used BBC One as their source (36%), followed by UTV (34%), while BBC Radio Ulster/Foyle (19%) and Facebook (15%) were the most-used radio and online sources for news about NI.
Radio continues to reach the vast majority of people in NI, and listening has increased from 2023 levels. More than nine in 10 adults (95%) now tune in for an average of 21 hours and 42 minutes each week.
Local radio remains particularly strong in NI, accounting for nearly two-thirds (62.2%) of total radio listening compared to 32.8% across the UK as a whole.
Just over two-thirds of adults in NI (67.1%) listen to local commercial radio at least once a week — a higher figure than in England, Scotland, Wales and the UK as a whole — and just under three in 10 (28.6%) listen to the BBC’s nations’/ local output, also higher in NI than in the other nations.
BBC Radio 2 was the only UK-wide station to feature in the top five most-listened-to services across NI in the first quarter of 2024. BBC Radio Ulster was again the most popular station in terms of the amount of listening, with a market share of 16.2% across NI, followed by Cool FM (14.6%).
The research revealed that four in 10 households (40%) in NI have a smart speaker, in line with the UK as a whole (41%). Amazon continues to be the most popular brand by a long way: more than four in five (84%) NI homes with smart speakers have an Amazon Echo, followed by the Google Home/Google Nest (9%).
Podcasts are slowly becoming a fixture, with nearly one in five (18.7%) adults in NI listening to podcasts once a week in the first quarter of 2024.
Jonathan Rose, Ofcom Northern Ireland director, said: “This latest Media Nations report highlights the affection that viewers and listeners have for programmes and services that have a strong local flavour.
“Whether it’s programmes like Blue Lights or locally based radio stations, viewers and listeners in Northern Ireland consistently tune in to see and hear people and places they identify with.
“And that comes at a time when people have never had so much choice of what to watch and listen to.”