The Late Late Show Valentine s Special Seduces More an 6,000

The Late Late Show Valentine s Special Seduces More Than 612,000 The Late Late Show Valentine's Special captured the hearts of more than 612,000 people on Friday night, with almost half the available viewing audience watching the entire programme.

An average* of 612,100 watched the entire Late Late Show Valentine's Special with a 46 per cent share** of the available audience enjoying one of the most talked about shows of the season.

The Valentine's Special had a reach*** of 1.2 million viewers tuning in over the course of the night.

The show also attracted a 38 per cent share of all 15-34 year olds watching television at the time.

Last Friday's programme is the most-watched Late Late Show of this year and the third most watched of the season, after The Late Late Toy Show and last October's Late Late Show Country Special.

The Valentine's Special featured an audience of more than 200 singletons looking for love, with games, kiss cams and power ballads from star performers Johnny Logan, Bonnie Tyler and Chris de Burgh aimed at fostering romance. The show also featured an amazing story of love and sacrifice from Ireland's Most Loved Up Couple Debbie Laffan and Reg Plunkett and interviews with Dublin footballer Philly McMahon and model Pippa O'Connor.

The Late Late Show Executive Producer Larry Masterson said: Friday night's show was great craic and the response we have had, especially from younger viewers has been phenomenal. Fifty years to the weekend the nation was scandalised when a married woman discussed her nightwear or lack thereof with Gay Byrne, the Valentine's Special shows how far we have come as a country. We're already planning to make next year's bigger and better than ever .

Viewers remained enamoured with RT throughout the weekend.

Ireland's agonising one-point defeat to France in the RBS 6 Nations drew an average of 670,000 viewers and a share of 59 per cent of the available audience to RT 2 on Saturday afternoon.

Meanwhile, The Ray D'Arcy Show also enjoyed its highest rating show of the year so far, and third highest rating show of the season, with an average of 441,600 viewers watching on Saturday night as Nicky Byrne debuted his Eurovision entry Sunlight'.

For more information contact: Gareth Naughton, TV Press Officer T: 01-2082667; M: 087-9792822; E: gareth.naughton@rte.ie

NOTE TO EDITORS:

Ratings Source: TAM Ireland Ltd / Nielsen TAM

*Average audience - 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 Share is the percentage of the available audience watching television at the time.

***Reach Reach is the number of viewers who tuned in for a minute or more of the programme.

Clips for Friday's The Late Late Show can be found here:

Audience Intro https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drzS4_hDPUc

Mario Rosenstock https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXcpkB8icnE

Ireland s Most Romantic Couple https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgxLv_CiCj8

Philly McMahon https://youtu.be/2lgp5y15D90

Tinder https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjbCnLGjSwg

Chris De Burgh https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cM5fBUvSW-c

Johnny Logan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJC4ABi7eMs

Bonnie Tyler https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmWqq-bNMvw

Link for some pictures from The Late Late Show Valentine's Special:http://we.tl/58OgMUgRKB

LINK:	http://www.rte.ie/about/en/press-office/press-releases/2016/0217/76885...
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