Читать книгу Christmas Dodos: Festive Things on the Verge of Extinction - Steve Stack - Страница 21

Lots of people still watch the Queen’s Christmas Message when it is broadcast across the major terrestrial channels at 3pm on Christmas Day. In 2012, it was seen by 8.3 million. However, that was a jubilee year. The general trend is actually one of decline.

It used to be that the nation stood still to watch the Queen – some quite literally, with entire families standing up throughout the ten-minute broadcast – but today the programme is suffering from the same issue as all television: too many channels, too little time.

That 2012 viewing figure was the largest for some years, only 5.6 million tuned in in 2009 and by 2010 the Queen’s speech had dropped out of the top ten most viewed completely. Even the 2012 figures are a huge drop on the 28 million who watched in 1987, the 12.8 million in 1997 and the 9.3 million at the turn of our new century.

Clearly, it will be around for years yet and is destined to become the King’s Speech at some point in the future (no rush, Your Majesty!), but I doubt the overall downward trend will be arrested for some time.

So, not extinct, and perhaps not strictly endangered, but definitely becoming less important.

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