King Felipe VI Christmas Message Sees Dip in TV Audience Across Spain and Regions
On Christmas Eve, December 24, a network of thirty television channels aired King Felipe VI of Spain delivering his tenth annual Christmas address. The broadcast drew a total audience of 6,044,000 viewers and secured a 64.1 percent share among those watching television during the time slot. This figure marks a continuing downward trend in viewership that has persisted for three consecutive years, reflecting shifting viewing habits during the holiday period.
The king’s message began at 21.00 and ran for thirteen minutes. Compared with the prior year, the audience declined by half a point and lost about 673,000 viewers, according to data from Barlovento Comunicación. The coverage stands as the second least viewed installment in the last decade, a position only surpassed by the 2016 broadcast that recorded a 57.6 percent share and 5,822,000 viewers. The most watched edition in the past ten years remains the 2020 address, broadcast during the peak of the coronavirus crisis, which reached a 71 percent audience share and drew 10,760,000 viewers to homes across the country.
Across the broadcasting landscape, Antena 3 led the night with a 13.9 percent share and 1,308,000 viewers, followed by Telecinco with 8.5 percent and 805,000, together contributing to a combined 22.6 percent share and 2,129,000 viewers during the message’s retransmission. LaSexta trailed at 4.5 percent with 423,000 viewers, while Cuatro registered 3.9 percent and 372,000. The program drew 1.6 percent and 148,000 viewers on Canal 24H, and 1.4 percent with 134,000 on La 2. These figures illustrate the uneven channel-by-channel engagement for the royal address that evening.
In total, television consumption between 21.00 and 21.30 amounted to 9.4 million viewers, signaling a drop of almost one million compared with the previous year. On a demographic level, the message appeared to resonate slightly more with women, capturing 65.2 percent of the female audience versus 62.7 percent among men. Age-based analysis highlighted stronger engagement among viewers older than 64, who accounted for an average audience of 65 percent during the broadcast.
Regional patterns in the reception of the address showed notable variation. The autonomous communities with the strongest alignment to the broadcast included Murcia with a 75.6 percent share, followed by Castilla-La Mancha at 74.9 percent, Aragon at 73.8 percent, Castilla y León at 73.6 percent, the Balearic Islands at 73.6 percent, and Madrid at 71.9 percent. By contrast, Catalonia reported a 42.3 percent share, the Basque Country 46.7 percent, and Asturias 54.8 percent, indicating substantial regional differences in how the king’s message was followed. These regional figures help illustrate how audience engagement during national holiday broadcasts can vary widely depending on local media markets and viewer habits. (Barlovento Comunicación)