The latest Digital i research into live UK terrestrial viewing confirms that while event programming and reality competitions remain the undisputed live leaders, ITV1’s crime drama and soaps offering are holding significant ground in the live window.
We analysed the Live+VOSDAL (Viewing On Same Day As Live) metrics for UK terrestrial channels BBC1, BBC2, ITV1, Channel 4 and Five for 2025, focusing on the top 20 titles (including series, movies, sport and one-off events), ranked by the highest average audience at the programme level throughout the year.
Even in an age of SVOD dominance, major events like the New Year’s Eve Fireworks (BBC1), which drew a massive 9.35 million live viewers, and entertainment juggernauts like Strictly Come Dancing (BBC1), averaging 6.39 million live, and I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! (ITV1), with 5.14 million live, prove that appointment viewing is far from dead.
Sport, including the World Cup: Qualifiers and Six Nations Championship are also present and correct, while the BBC News at Six remains a big live draw.
However, beneath these prevailing terrestrial keystones and headline-grabbing reality figures lies a resilient layer of scripted programming, with ITV1 crime drama and soaps remaining one of the top 20 draws to tune into a linear broadcast.
Investigating scripted resilience
For the general UK population, long-standing soaps continue to demonstrate the power of habit, with Coronation Street (ITV1) maintaining a formidable year average live presence of 2.97 million live viewers and a 24.3% audience share, followed closely by Emmerdale (ITV1) with 2.89 million average live viewers and the slightly higher 24.7% share.
However, crime drama also stands out as a reliable attractor of live linear viewing outside of reality TV. In 2025, several ITV1 crime drama titles performed exceptionally well with the general public.
Grace (ITV1) attracted 2.89 million live viewers and a 23.9% share on average during 2025, while Unforgotten (ITV1) drew in 2.67 million live viewers on average, with a 21.9% share.
Vera (ITV1), meanwhile, attracted 2.66 million average live viewers, with a 20.1% audience share, which rose to 3.8 million live viewers and 24.9% share for its two-part final season in isolation.
Avoiding spoilers
With younger audiences increasingly switching off from terrestrial viewing, we also examined the 16–24 demographic in isolation, with the data revealing a radical departure.
For younger viewers, the live window is almost exclusively reserved for content where the live aspect is essential to the experience - specifically reality competitions where the social media conversation can be as important as the show itself and the potential for immediate spoilers is rife.
In this demographic group, The Celebrity Traitors (BBC1) reached a peak average of 615.6k young viewers for its finale, achieving a staggering 81.1% share of the 16–24s watching TV at that time. The show averaged 190.1k 16-24-year-old viewers across the full season, with a still significant 68.3% audience share.
Meanwhile, I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! (ITV1) maintained a youth average of 335.4k across 2025 (6.5% of the total average audience), but soaps and crime drama struggled to replicate this appointment viewing.
The most telling insight from the 16–24 data was that both genres were entirely absent. While a crime drama like Vera or Grace, or a soap like Emmerdale, was a top-20 hit for the nation, they did not appear in the top-tier rankings for young live viewers.
This suggests that, largely, 16–24s are not tied to the linear schedule for viewing to these crime dramas and soaps and if they still engage with these stories, it is via long-tail VOD platforms like iPlayer or ITVX.
Instead, these demographic groups reserves its live viewing for the high-stakes, spoiler-heavy genres of reality or events programming such as sport or the Eurovision Song Contest (BBC1) - and festive scripted family moments, such as The Scarecrow's Wedding (BBC1) and the Home Alone (Channel 4) films.
