BBC SETS RECORDS WITH GLASTO

A record 21.6m people watched the Glastonbury Festival on BBC TV, with Elton John attracting a televised audience of 7.3m.

John’s set resulted in a surge in streaming at Spotify; his tracks increased 294% in the U.K. in the hour after his set.

Arctic Monkeys also set a record, for a Friday-night headlining set, with a peak audience of 2.6m and an average of 1.5m on BBC One. On Saturday, Guns N’ Roses’ headlining set peaked at 2.1m viewers on BBC Two, while Lewis Capaldi and Lizzo peaked at 2.4m and averaged 2.3m viewers on BBC One, respectively.

Yusuf/Cat Stevens had the biggest BBC Two audience this year, peaking on Sunday at 3m and averaging 2.3m. Rick Astley and Blondie, on BBC One, had a peak audience of 2.5m and an average of 2.1m, respectively.

Ratings for the 40 hours of programming were up 7% over last year.

Glastonbury content was streamed a record 50.3m times across BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds, a 47% rise from 2022. The video streams on BBC iPlayer totaled 47.5m, a a 49% spike; audio streams on BBC Sounds hit 2.8m, up 26% from 2022.