The viewing figures have been tallied and it's been announced just which Irish shows the most people watched in the year that was 2017, and it seems despite the range of channels available in Ireland, RTE still came out on top.

The national broadcaster managed to air all of the top 20 programmes broadcast in Ireland last year, and as you can probably guess, it was The Late Late Toy Show that came in number one again, with 1.35m tuning in to see last year’s Little Mermaid extravaganza

RTÉ Sport continued to dominate the most-watched list accounting for 11 of the top 20 programmes of the year. The next highest watched programmes - all airing on RTÉ2 - were the All-Ireland Football final on RTÉ2, featuring Dublin versus Mayo in September; the Euro qualifier play-off against Denmark; the All-Ireland Hurling final featuring Galway v Waterford; and the Wales v Ireland World Cup qualifier. RTÉ2’s coverage of three fixtures in the RBS 6 Nations also occupied Top 10 spots.

As well as sport, Irish audiences clearly love entertainment, with the first elimination on Dancing with the Stars drawing a huge audience, along with two episodes of Mrs Brown’s Boys, one of which was the Christmas special unveiling the new ‘Rory’.

The Late Late Show Country Music Special proved a big hit in April with 690,000 viewers and a 50 percent share. And RTÉ One’s Sunday night favourite, Dermot Bannon’s Room to Improve continued to be popular ten seasons in, with the highest rating episode last year watched by 703,000 viewers.

During Storm Ophelia in October, Irish viewers turned to RTÉ News from the time the Status Red warning was given ahead of the Nine O’Clock News on Sunday, 15th October making it the sixth most watched programme of the year and most watched news bulletin of 2017 with 846,000 viewers. Large audiences continued to watch the extensive coverage from reporters across the country and live updates from Met Éireann throughout the next day with extended One O’Clock and Six One News programmes on 16th October.

Adrian Lynch, Director of Channels, Marketing and Audiences said, "The figures released today by TAM Ireland show that TV is very much a part of our daily lives and that, despite competition from other channels in Ireland, the UK and elsewhere, RTÉ programming is most popular with Irish audiences. Bringing the nation together for big national events, from news to sport to entertainment, Irish audiences joined the national public service broadcaster in 2017 in huge numbers and we look forward to bringing viewers more quality Irish programming in 2018."

Take a look at the viewing figures below: