BBC Comedy is celebrating a successful festive season showcasing a range of popular and critically acclaimed content from the Ghosts special, Mrs Brown’s Boys and Inside No.9 to The Detectorists, Bad Education, Motherland, Two Doors Down and The Cleaner.

Jon Petrie, Director of BBC Comedy says : “Despite all the competition, I’m proud to say that BBC comedy is still the biggest fish in the pond delivering a unique public service offer that was once again showcased throughout the festive season. Across the UK, audiences were treated to a variety of distinctive shows from new and established comedy voices that reflect our highly cherished British sense of humour. We look forward to serving up more comedy treats for BBC viewers in 2023.”

Key Audience highlights so far detailed below, all data updated on 9th January 2023 – 4 Screens BARB when available. 

Ghosts: It’s Behind You Christmas Special saw 5.9 million - its biggest ever audience with a prime slot on Christmas Day. This also places it as the biggest comedy of the year (up to 25th December) so far.

Motherland is up to 5 million – this is the highest audience for the show to date.

On Christmas Day, Mrs Brown’s Boys saw an impressive 4.1 million.

The Detectorists special on Boxing Day saw an audience of 3.8 million, its biggest audience on record.

The Cleaner: A Clean Christmas is up to 3.2 million  – the second highest audience to date for the series and its highest ever young audience.

Two Doors Down also saw its highest audience for the series to date, currently up to 2.6million.

Inside No. 9’s The Bones of St Nicholas saw an audience of 2.3 million,  its biggest on record.

The Bad Education Reunion special averaged 0.9 million with just under half of the audience being 16-34s putting it among the top new launches on BBC Three behind Conversations with Friends and Drag Race UK vs The World.