Top 50 TV Programmes 2022

As a nation we viewed almost 3.7 billion hours of Broadcaster TV in 2022!1

TAM Ireland/Nielsen Media released the viewing figures for 2022 this week and it proves just how much the viewing public in Ireland love TV.

The average Irish adult in a TV home watches Broadcaster TV on a TV set for 2 hours 35 mins every day – that’s almost 78 hours a month that each of us spend with our favourite form of entertainment.2

85% of this daily viewing is consumed live, (i.e. viewed as it is scheduled), and 15% watched as catch up. This figure has remained fairly static since 2018.

Good news for advertisers; Housekeepers (those that have the responsibility for the main household shopping) continue to be amongst the heaviest viewers spending 3hrs and 15 mins watching broadcast TV every day.
Over the course of 2022 ads were consumed 35 billion times.3

Women spent slightly more time viewing each day than men – 2hrs 42 and 2 hrs 28mins respectively.

The Late Late Toy Show again hit the number one spot out performing all other TV shows in 20224

We are a sport loving nation and this was clear with 9 of the top 10 most viewed programmes being sporting events. The All Ireland football was the most popular, followed by Ireland v France in the Guinness Six Nations. The world cup also came to prominence with both the semi and final making it to the top 10 and the Ire v S. Africa game from the Autumn Nations Series also appeared in the top 20.

But it’s not all about sport – news, current affairs and documentaries featured highly with Quinn Country making an appearance alongside the Six One News and Nine O’Clock News.

And the backbone of TV – pure light entertainment – kept us amused throughout the year with the top performing shows like Room to Improve, Dancing with the Stars and I’m a Celeb all featuring in this year’s top 50 list.

The Soaps of course maintained their steady appeal, Fair City was the top of the soaps closely followed by Coronation St and Emmerdale.

15-34s love event TV like Live Sport, The Toy Show, Love Island, Derry Girls and the Funeral of Queen Elizabeth II. Ads on Irish Commercial TV in 2022 were consumed 4 billion times by 15-34 yr olds5

There’s no doubt, if you want to appeal to the Irish nation show them something Irish – home-produced programmes accounted for over 90% of the top 50 Programmes.
TV broadcasters provide this content at scale to mass audiences and this is why TV continues to stand out as the super medium.

Looking at total viewing to all video across all devices6 viewing to broadcaster content is by far the most popular viewing activity. Total video viewing data is available for the first 10 months of 2022 and it shows that People spend 70% of their daily viewing with broadcaster content, 11% with streaming services such as Netflix etc. and 19% with video sharing platforms such as Youtube and tik-tok etc.

Broadcasters continue to invest in their own player services and this is clearly paying dividends when we see how well the broadcasters are holding share against their streaming counterparts.

1 Source: TAM Ireland / Nielsen Media, Individuals, Total TV, Avg. mins per person, consolidated, all day, 2022
2 Source: TAM Ireland / Nielsen Media, Adults 15+, Total TV, Avg. mins per person, consolidated, all day, 2022
3 Source: TAM Ireland/Nielsen Media, adults 15+ total commercial impacts, consolidated, all day 2022
4 Source: TAM Ireland/Nielsen Media: Top Programmes based on Individuals 4+, All Subscribing Channels,  Averaging Option: Any Day, Any Time, Best Episode, Minimum  Duration 10 Minutes.
Please note: This list uses best episode of a series.
5Source: TAM Ireland/Nielsen Media, 15-34 yrs total commercial impacts, consolidated, all day 2022
6 Source: TAM Ireland/Nielsen Media Total Video Panel – Jan – Oct 2022