'Toy Show' beats all TV ratings since 1994

FRIDAY NIGHT'S Late Late Toy Showwas the most watched show on television in 17 years.

It attracted an average of 1,414,000 viewers, beating the previous record for last year's Toy Showof 1,407,700 viewers. This means this year's show is the most watched programme on Irish television since the 1994 World Cup.

The show attracted a significant overseas audience, with nearly 40 per cent of the 68,000 streams on the RTÉ Player coming from abroad, mostly the UK and US.

The show's reach – those who tuned in for at least a minute – was 2.156 million, and its share was 69.5 per cent. Some of the highlights included Ashley Tubridy (9 – no relation to Ryan), who performed Forever Friends,a song she wrote herself, and toy tester Seán O'Connor (6), who won over the audience with his performance of AC/DC's Highway to Hell.

The audience figures are good news for The Late Late Show,given it has slipped from its number-one ranking on a number of occasions this year, most notably when it was only the sixth highest ranked programme, in early October – albeit on a night when it clashed with a European Championship qualifier.

Presenter Ryan Tubridy, who dressed up as Toy Storycharacter Woody, said he was "genuinely taken aback" by the number of viewers. He said: "Full credit to all the children, who are the real stars of the show . . . I think the country needed to smile and I hope we made that happen."