Oprah\'s interview with the young British royals achieved the most watched programme on Irish TV with 836,500 viewers tuning into see the couple talk about life after royalty. Along with World Cup Qualifiers it helped RTÉ2 increase its audience share by 33%, however RTÉ2 only achieved a 5% share of the audience across the month. Overall RTÉ saw 3% increase month on month but a 10% decrease year on year. Virgin Media Television\'s coverage of the Six Nations continued in March giving them no monthly change but a 27% increase year on year. Overall RTÉ held 27% of the audience, while Virgin Media Television had 21%.
February\'s Six Nations Kick off has given Virgin Media TV its highest audience share since the Rugby World Cup 2015. Ireland V France had an average audience of 798,400 on Virgin Media One, the most viewed programme of the month. In total Virgin Media TV had a 21% share up 15% from last year and 26% month on month, this figure was last achieved across TV3, 3e and UTV Ireland in October 2015. RTÉ saw a drop of 11% from last year, with a monthly drop of 3%. Overall RTÉ held 26% of the audience.
The first month in 2021 sees Irish TV drop by 4% month-on-month and by 1% year-on-year. With Dancing With The Stars put on hiatus due to COVID restrictions RTÉ ONE managed to pull in a normally high audience for this time of year. Ireland\'s Fittest Family to the place of DWTS to help RTÉ\'s Sunday night line up, with the return of The Tommy Teirnan Show also helping weekend viewing on the channel. Virgin Media one\'s line up of returning ITV reality shows help them to retains an 11% share. Overall RTÉ held 27% of the audience, while their nearest rivals Virgin Media Television held on to 17%.
RTÉ ONE remains by far the most watched TV station in Ireland with an average audience of 21% for 2020. The channel\'s share grew significantly over the year due to its coverage of the COVID pandemic. In 2019 it had dropped to 17.55% its lowest audience in 6 years. Virgin Media one (AKA TV3) saw a small dip in 2020, its audience share for 2020 was 11.3% down from 11.5% in 2019. RTÉ2 slipped further behind due to the cancellation of sporting events in 2020, it would have been home to both the Olympic Games 2020 and The World Cup 2020. RTÉ2 had an average audience share of 4.7% in 2020 its lowest audience in the last 7 years, down from 7.6% in 2014. Overall RTÉ saw its share across its suite of channels grow in 2020 from 25.5% to 27%, while it\'s nearest rival Virgin Media Television saw its share fall from 17.3% to 16.8% in 2020. TG4 retain its 1.83% share of the audience in 2020.
December\'s sporting finals helped Irish TV to 47% of the TV audience. Down 5% from November 2020 and up 10% from December 2019. RTÉ\'s average share of the audience was down 2% month-on-month, on an annual basis it was up 13% in December 2020. Virgin Media was down 11% month-on-month, but it was up 9% year-on-year.\r\n
COVID-19, Election 2020, The Toy Show, Drama and Sport bring in the viewers over 2020. The top 50 list of most watch shows on Irish TV show a mixture of everything from Drama to Factual and from Comedy to Covid. The Late Late Toy Show as expected to the top spot with 1.7m viewers tuning into the annual entertainment Christmas show with Ryan Tubrity. RTÉ took 43 of the top place with their rival Virgin Media Television taking 7. Virgin Media\'s top show was ITV I\'m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here with 639,900 viewers. RTÉ2\'s top programme was The GAA Football Final with 876,600. The only other shows to get over a million viewers was An Taoiseach speech from Washington announcing COVID measure on St. Patrick\'s Day, the RTÉ 9 O\'Clock News that night and as the news in the rise of COVID numbers at the end of the year RTÉ\'s 6.1 was watch by over a million viewers on December 30th.