ITV daytime shows This Morning and Loose Women have attracted their biggest audiences in two and six years respectively, as much of the nation works from home amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The broadcaster has shared overnight ratings, which show that between 6am and 5.59pm yesterday (Wednesday), it attracted an average of 1.5 million viewers – a 20% share of the total audience watching TV at the time.
This is the strongest performance for a Wednesday since Christmas Day 2013, ITV said.
Loose Women, which runs from 12.30pm, had the highest rise in average audience, up 76% year on year to 1.3 million. This Morning (at 10am) was up 70% to 1.5 million and Lorraine (9am) pulled in an extra 23%.
ITV said that these programmes are "proving a particular draw for young people". This Morning almost doubled (up 93%) its share of 16- to 34-year-old viewers, and Loose Women more than doubled younger viewers (up 139%).
Good Morning Britain, which airs for three hours from 6am and is hosted by Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid, had its seventh-biggest audience ever – an average of 906,000, up 15% year on year.
The broadcaster’s news coverage during ITV Lunchtime News had its biggest audience since New Year’s Day 2014 with 1.6 million viewers – almost double that of last year.
The rest of ITV’s news coverage throughout the day also "performed strongly". ITV Evening Regional News was up 19% year on year to 4.2 million; the ITV Evening National News audience grew 17% to 3.9 million and ITV News at Ten increased its audience by 19% to 2.4 million.
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