Irish audiences love Irish telly: The best of Irish sees RT Score 9 of the Top 10

Over 1 million tune into The Late Late season opener482,000 see Ireland become the world's number one rugby team and 605,800 tuned in to witness the All Ireland camogie finals

Last weekend saw Irish audiences turn to Irish television in huge numbers with the return of big Irish favourites and national sporting events bringing the nation together.

RT aired nine out of the top ten programmes last weekend, where the top five programmes each averaged over 300,000 viewers.

The Late Late Show came back with a bang for its 57th season with over 1 million people tuning in over the course of the show which began with an emotional tribute to the national services. The programme averaged 545,000 viewers and a 49.1% share for the entire duration of the show, the highest season opening since 2016.

The live broadcast attracted an additional 43,276 streams on Friday night on RT Player, with 66,224 watching in total across the full weekend. 1.5 Million people viewed Sinead O'Connor's powerful performance of Nothing Compares 2 U' on the RT One twitter account since it aired on Friday night.

Host Ryan Tubridy said: Last Friday was a really special moment for us all on The Late Late Show, to open with a great sense of pride and gratitude especially for our friends from the national services who all got the salute they deserve. The splash of colour from Maura and Greg was gorgeous and fun, Aisling Bea was a revelation for a lot of people, a great comic talent, and of course, Sin ad O'Connor turned a page for many people watching. Her performance was golden, her interview was thoughtful and warm and I think Irish people seemed to take her to their hearts again. We are up and running, no tie, no desk, new chair see you next week.

306,000 (46%) watched Ireland defeat Wales in the Aviva Stadium and become the World's number one rugby team. The match reached 482,000 as Rory Best captained his last game for the boys in green before they head for Japan to compete in the Rugby World Cup later this month. In addition, 39,500 people also watched it on RT Player. Coverage of the Rugby World Cup commences on RT 2 on September 20th.

290,800 (25.8%) watched Mrs Brown's Boys star Rory Cowan make his debut in Carrigstown last night as he played the character John Bosco Walsh', carer of Rose O'Brien.

Fair City actor, Rory Cowan said: I'm over the moon with excitement and I'm delighted to be eventually able to let people know I've joined the cast of Fair City. The other cast members gave me a lovely welcome when I called in to see them. I feel right at home in Carrigstown. I'm delighted with the move there. Besides, if you're going to join a show, after you've been in a huge TV show already, then what's better than joining the biggest drama series on Irish television.

605,800 tuned into witness the three camogie finals, including the senior final as Galway were crowned 2019 All-Ireland champions, the first time they won since 2013. An average of almost 255,000 (34% share) watched the tribeswomen beat Kilkenny 3-14 to 0-17. The live broadcast attracted an additional 21,600 streams.

Viewers turned to RT News in the build up to today's much anticipated arrival of UK's Prime Minister Borris Johnson to Dublin with the Nine O'Clock and Six O'Clock News programmes drawing average audiences of 420,000 (37.4% share) and 308,000 (35.4% share) respectively on Friday and Saturday.

Ratings Source: TAM Ireland Ltd / Nielsen TAM

*Average audience (Live+VOSDAL - Live + Viewed on Same Day As Live) -The average number of viewers across a programme or series, expressed in 000s. TV viewing is measured minute-by-minute, so the average audience is the average across all of these minutes.

**Share The percentage of the total audience watching television at the time.

***Reach, Live + VOSDAL - Reach is the number of people who tuned in for at least a minute of the show.

LINK:	https://about.rte.ie/2019/09/12/irish-audiences-love-irish-telly-the-b...
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