Spoty Peaks At 14.5m Viewers
The BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2012 was watched by a peak audience of 14.5 million on Sunday, as the event pulled in its largest viewership for two decades, with the BBC1 end-of-year review show also watched live by a record 16,000 people at the London Excel Centre.
Dominated largely by the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Awards took an average audience of 10.6 million viewers, a 39.6% share.
The climax of the show, when Tour de France champion and Olympic gold medalist Bradley Wiggins take the major award, saw the biggest 15 minute peak – hitting 14.3 million viewers, a 56.5% share, between 10:15pm and 10:30pm – with the programme overrunning by 30 minutes.
Following an extraordinary year in sport, the audience was more than twice the 4.2 million viewers that watched last year’s show, which saw Wiggins’ cycling comrade Mark Cavendish take the overall prize. Although the low figures could have been marred by the decision to switch the programme from its traditional Sunday night spot to a more unpopular Thursday night.
It was the biggest recorded audience for the Sports Personality of the Year Show since at least 1992, with the previous highest in the last decade the 8.3 million viewers who tuned in following England’s victory in the Rugby World Cup in 2003, with Jonny Wilkinson taking the prize.
Wiggins had to beat 11 other contenders to the prestigious title rather than the usual 10-person shortlist, after it was extended due to the phenomenal year for British sport.
Olympic heptathlon champion Jessica Ennis was runner-up while US Open winner Andy Murray was third.
Full BBC Sports Personality of the Year results
Total votes: 1,626,718
1. Bradley Wiggins 492,064 (30.25%)
2. Jessica Ennis 372,765 (22.92%)
3. Andy Murray 230,444 (14.17%)
4. Mo Farah 131,327 (8.07%)
5. David Weir 114,633 (7.05%)
6. Ellie Simmonds 102,894 (6.33%)
7. Sir Chris Hoy 42,961 (2.64%)
8. Nicola Adams 35,560 (2.19%)
9. Ben Ainslie 35,373 (2.17%)
10. Rory McIlroy 29,729 (1.83%)
11. Katherine Grainger 28,626 (1.76%)
12. Sarah Storey 10,342 (0.64%)
