Blue Planet 2 is the most-watched TV show of 2017 so far

Beating Strictly Come Dancing and the X Factor

Tuesday 07 November 2017 15:57 GMT

Last year, nine of the ten most-watched TV shows were episodes of The Great British Bake Off. That one show that managed to break through? Planet Earth II’s mountain-centric episode.

The Sir David Attenborough narrated show managed to beat out stiff competition from Britain’s Got Talent, I’m a Celebrity and Strictly Come Dancing, that particular episode being watched by 13.14 million people.

With Bake Off having moved to Channel 4 — a channel that fewer households have access to than BBC One — Blue Planet II has swooped in to become 2017’s most-watched programme.

Including catch-up on BBC iPlayer, the first episode of the wildlife series sequel has been seen by 14.1 million viewers since debuting on the 29 October.

That phenomenal figure also the episode the third most-watched programme of the last five years, behind only last year’s Bake Off finale and the 2014 football World Cup final.

Blue Planet II – in pictures

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1/10Blue Planet II – in pictures

Blue Planet II – in pictures

Broadclub cuttlefish

"A broadclub cuttlefish (Sepia latimanus) in Indonesia. Its skin contains millions of pigment cells with which it can create ever-changing colours and patterns to apparently mesmerise their prey."

BBC

Blue Planet II – in pictures

Coral spawning on the Great Barrier Reef, Australia

"Once a year, responding to cues from the cycle of the moon and the temperature of the water, corals simultaneously release their eggs and sperm into the ocean. Tiny coral larvae drift in the ocean currents, some for days, some for weeks, before sinking back down to the ocean floor and settling to become new corals."

BBC

Blue Planet II – in pictures

An aggregation of marbled grouper (Epinephelus polyphekadion), French Polynesia

"Thousands of groupers gather here in one of the few pristine spawning aggregations for this species remaining in the world. By taking up the position closest to a female, the male stands the best chance of fertilising her eggs."

BBC

Blue Planet II – in pictures

Saddleback clownfish (Amphiprion polymnus)

"A male saddleback clownfish uses all the strength it can muster to push a coconut shell to its anemone in Borneo. Unlike their reef relatives, saddleback clownfish live around anemones that are found in the sand, far away from the solid structure of the coral reef. Male saddleback clownfish must use their ingenuity to find a hard substrate upon which the females can lay their eggs."

BBC

Blue Planet II – in pictures

Peters' monocle breams (Scolopsis affinis)

"A group of Peters' monocle breams blow water-jets onto a hiding bobbit worm (Eunice aphroditois) to expose its ferocious jaws. In so doing, they alert other fish to the worm's location, ruining the predator’s chance of a surprise attack. This new behaviour was published for the first time by Jose Lachat and Daniel Haag-Wackernagel in 2016."

BBC

Blue Planet II – in pictures

Green turtles (Chelonia mydas)

Green turtles in Sipadan, Borneo, jostling for their place at a cleaning station. Here, turtles are serviced by blennies and surgeonfish who rid them of algal growth, parasites and dead skin. In return, these fish receive a nutritious meal.

BBC

Blue Planet II – in pictures

Bumphead parrotfish (Bolbometopon muricatum)

"Bumphead parrotfish feeding on coral and algae in Borneo. These parrotfish use their large forehead to ram corals, thereby breaking them into pieces that are more easily ingested. Each fish ingests over 5 tons of structural reef carbonates per year and after they digest the edible portions from the rock, they excrete it as sand, helping to create small islands and the sandy beaches."

BBC

Blue Planet II – in pictures

Coral garden

"A fish's-eye view of a coral garden on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. New underwater probe lenses, developed for Blue Planet II, allow the viewer to immerse themselves into the coral reef city like never before."

BBC

Blue Planet II – in pictures

A coral grouper (Plectropomus leopardus)

"A coral grouper on the Great Barrier Reef in Northern Australia. Groupers use a gesture dubbed the ‘headstand signal’ to reach across the vertebrate-invertebrate divide and encourage another species to help it hunt. Gestures such as this are thought to only occur in the largest-brained species. The discovery of this behaviour in groupers indicates that some fish are able to think flexibly to achieve their goals."

BBC

Blue Planet II – in pictures

Bigeye trevally (Caranx sexfasciatus)

"A school of Bigeye trevally gather at the outer edge of the reef wall in Sipadan, Borneo. These trevally are a schooling species, widespread in the tropics and usually found in large- slow moving schools during the day. They eat a variety of smaller fish, crustaceans and marine invertebrates."

BBC

Blue Planet II faced stiff competition from the day before’s edition of Strictly Come Dancing (28 October), which managed to attract 12.28 million viewers.

The previous most-watched programme of 2017 was the One Love Manchester concert in June, 11.63 million people having watched Arianna Grande perform.

Attenborough’s wildlife series may very well break its own record in the coming weeks, the second episode having been watched live by an additional 500,000 people compared to the first, totaling 10.8 million.

Again, the show defeated Strictly, which managed 10.1 million viewers, also not including repeats of catch-up. Unfortunately for the X Factor, they managed record-low ratings, only attracting 4.3 million viewers.

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