Princess on 'Panorama' is top TV draw

The Panorama interview in which the Princess of Wales admitted adultery won the biggest television audience of last year, the BBC revealed yesterday.

The BBC1 current affairs programme attracted 22.8 million viewers, half a million more than its closest rival, the Christmas episode of EastEnders.Third was Coronation Street with 20.8 million viewers and fourth was Heartbeat with 18.7 million, both ITV programmes. Six of the top ten programmes last year were on BBC1, with the rest on ITV.

Figures for last year show that BBC1 defended itself well against ITV and Channel 4 - reducing their viewing share by 2 per cent to 48.2 per cent. The BBC's was 43.3 per cent. Overall trends show that the BBC has slipped from 46 per cent in 1985, while ITV and Channel 4 dropped from a 54 per cent share the same year. This is due to the growing satellite market, which last year won 8.5 per cent of viewers.