TOTP ratings an unexpected Christmas cracker for BBC.

Veteran show's return wins music TV ratings battle

RICKY WILSON, JARVIS COCKER, CULTURE SECRETARY ANDY BURNHAM and all the other voices calling for the return of Top Of The Pops have been given ammunition for their campaign after viewing figures showed the BBC1 Christmas and New Year's Eve specials pulled in almost 8m viewers between them.

Although that fell well short of the 14.3m viewers who tuned in to BBC1's Wallace & Gromit - A Matter Of Loaf & Death - the most-watched show over the Christmas period - the 3.7m who tuned in to BBC1 at 2pm on Christmas Day was nearer the viewing figures achieved by the show at the turn of the century.

And it was also a lot more than the average 2.8m viewers achieved in 2003 when the show began to play more up-and-coming tracks in a move that it hoped would revitalise the programme. The Fearne Cotton and Reggie Yates-helmed hour-long Christmas special, which saw performances from Take That, Duffy, Girls Aloud and Alexandra Burke, attracted 30.6% share of TV viewers at that time.

The New Year's Eve special, also presented by Cotton and Yates, was broadcast at 5.35pm and reviewed the year in music with highlights such as Coldplay at the BBC and Madonna at Radio One's Big Weekend and Kings of Leon at Glastonbury. It attracted 4.1m and a 20.8% share of viewers.

TOTP2, which had eight shows between December 22-30, also proved popular. The BBC2 show on December 23 at 7.30pm pulled in 2.4m viewers - equal to 10.8% of the viewing population. And the Christmas Eve edition at 11.15pm had a 1.3m audience.

Jools Holland's Hootenanny, which featured performances from Martha and the Vandellas, Dave Edmunds, Sam Sparro, Duffy and Lily Allen, was screened at 10.55pm on New Year's Eve on BBC2 and attracted 2.7m viewers, represtenting a 19.7% ...