Saturday night’s emotionally-charged Strictly Come Dancing final proved that even after 20 years – and a series of scandals – there’s still a lot of love for the BBC’s showpiece entertainment juggernaut. A deserved win for comedian Chris McCausland and professional dancer Dianne Buswell brought down the curtain on yet another TV ratings winner.
Topical News
- Strictly Come Dancing may have been beset by scandal in this, its 20th year, but the stalwart of light entertainment is simply too good and too popular to fail. Dance page views increased by almost 90% to drive Arts & Culture to growth of +67% week on week. And, yes, Strictly is art – even when its celebrity contestants wear pink PVC trousers.
- While interest in festive film favourites is on the rise, speculation about whether Cillian Murphy features as an emaciated zombie in the trailer for Danny Boyle’s 28 Years Later drove Movies to 35.5m page views last week – the category’s second highest weekly total of 2024. Filmed entirely on adapted iPhone 15s, the follow up to the 2002 cult survival horror classic will be released in summer 2025. Horror Movies page views were 4.4x higher last week.
Seasonal Events
- Silly season’s second week continued to drive online readers to Events & Attractions content, with the category up by almost a quarter last week. Topics boosting interest including Bank Holidays (2x), Festive Events (+40%), Party Supplies (+29%) and Bars & Restaurants (+14%).
- Speaking of party planning, with Brits busy readying their homes for private festive celebrations drove Home Entertaining page views to 2.2x growth, lifting the Home & Garden category to an overall increase of +8% week on week.
