The Late Late Toy Show is the most watched programme of the year

Friday night’s Beauty and the Beast themed Late Late Toy Show is officially the most-watched programme on television so far this year in Ireland.

The show, hosted by Ryan Tubridy, attracted an average of 1.36 million viewers who watched the entire show – gathering an audience both young and old with a reach of almost two million and a share of 73 per cent.

There were more than 91,000 tweets sent on the night using the official #LateLateToyShow hashtag alone and the volume of tweets being sent peaked at 620 per minute.

Success: Ryan and his helpers put on a great show for over a million people on the night | ANDRES POVEDA

Late Late Toy Show host Ryan Tubridy, who did an amazing job on the night, said “After the success of last year, I really didn’t think it could be bettered.”

“As we got closer to the day I felt the weight of great expectation but a combination of stellar children, Trojan teamwork behind-the-scenes and some magic in the air helped make it a great night for everyone.

“I want to thank everyone for making this one of the biggest Late Late Toy Shows ever.”

The best: Ryan labelled it ‘one of the best Toy Shows ever’ with David Walliams making an appearance | ANDRES POVEDA

This years show also featured a record number of children taking part with a total of 285 appearing including performers and toy testers.

As well as the huge amount of people who tuned into the show on the night, an average of 172,000 people watched the entire show when it was repeated on RTÉ One on Sunday.

All toys featured on the show on the night will be donated to charity.

Charitable: Toys from the show will be donated to a number of charities | ANDRES POVEDA

Children nominated by a number of charities – Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital, Crumlin; Heart Children Ireland; LauraLynn Ireland Children’s Hospice; The Jack & Jill Foundation and Barretstown – experienced the set in advance of the show.   

A list of all the toys featured is available on the show’s website: www.rte.ie/latelate.

You can also check out our video of when Goss.ie went behind the scenes of the Late Late Toy Show and had a chat with the host with the most Ryan Tubridy.