TELEVISION / Statistics

In the Christmas week television ratings, ITV was on the wrong end of a festive stuffing - BBC consistently won the larger audiences. Top of the Christmas billing was EastEnders: its Christmas Day episode had an audience of 21.47m. Top of ITV's Christmas week billing was Wednesday's Coronation Street with 19.93m, though the Christmas Day episode got a comparatively low 15.63m.

Most-watched non-soap for the second year running was Only Fools and Horses with 20.13m, 3.4m better than last year. Next came More Auntie's Bloomers (18.45m) followed by the Birds of a Feather Christmas special (16.88m); ITV's most- watched non-soap was Wish You Were Here on 15.03m.

As usual, the films were crowd-pullers. Last year, BBC1's Batman was the big one (14.3m), this year it was BBC1's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (15.8m). ITV's top film was Heartbreak Ridge (11.54m).

The nation was less square- eyed than last year; average viewing for the week dropped by three hours to 32.59hrs, though that's partly due to Christmas falling later in the week. The Queen's speech was watched by 19.6m, a drop on 1991.

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