Line of Duty season 6 finale viewing figures are in – and they’re huge

It looks like the finale will be going into the TV drama history books

The viewing figures for the Line of Duty finale have been announced – and they’re enormous.

All week long, the BBC has been teasing the conclusion to series six as “the one viewers have been waiting for”, which led many to believe the episode would be the end of the show altogether.

This seems to have paid off considering the seventh episode was not just the most watched episode of the series, but the most watched episode of the year so far, with a staggering 12.8m tuning in to find out the identity of “the Fourth Man” –that’s a 56.2 per cent share of the country’s TV viewing audience

As this is just the overnight ratings, the figure looks set to increase as BBC iPlayer views are registered over the next few days, meaning the episode is set to easily overtake the series six premiere, which was seen by an amassed viewership of 15.20m.

In terms of just taking overnight figures into account, this makes the finale the UK’s most watched TV episode since the Doctor Who Christmas special in 2008, which was watched by 11.7m viewers.

It also overtakes previous episodes of Line of Duty,as well as creator Jed Mercurio’s other TV hit, Bodyguard.

Despite the ratings, the finale has been widely panned as “disappointing” by viewers.

On Monday (3 May), the BBC hinted it would be happy to make more episodes of the crime show should creator Jed Mercurio wish to do so.

Read the channel’s full statement here.

Martin Compston as DI Steve Arnott in ‘Line of Duty’ (BBC iPlayer)

Find all the talking points from the finale here as well as all of the show’s unanswered questions here.

All six series of Line of Duty are available to stream on BBC iPlayer.