DEL BOY and Rodney Trotter reasserted their hold on Christmas audiences as a special Only Fools and Horses helped to push the BBC to an overwhelming victory in the war of the festive television ratings.

The Trotters’ exploits, starring David Jason and Nicholas Lyndhurst, topped the Christmas ratings for the third consecutive year, according to preliminary viewing figures released yesterday.

They showed that the South London family’s latest adventures, involving yet another run in with the taxman and Rodney becoming a father for the first time, had attracted 15.5 million viewers, making theirs the top show on Christmas Day.

The BBC had tried to ensure success by showing a succession of former Christmas special episodes before December 25 to whet the appetite. The audience was, nonetheless, substantially smaller than last year when 17.4 million tuned in, but comfortably ahead of the 14 million who watched the 8.30pm edition of EastEnders, in which Kat Slater married Alfie Moon. Last year 17 million watched the comparable episode of the soap.

Some 11.8 million people watched ITV’s Coronation Street, in which Tracy Barlow revealed the identity of her baby’s father.

Seven of the top ten rated shows were shown on BBC One, and only three on ITV, according to the figures from the independent Broadcasters’ Audience Research Bureau.

The Queen’s Christmas Day speech, prerecorded on location from the Cumbermere Barracks in Windsor, home of the Household Cavalry, was the seventh most watched programme behind a diet of soaps, comedy and news.

The Queen’s traditional message to the Commonwealth, broadcast at 3pm, was watched by 6.5 million viewers on BBC One, half a million fewer than those who saw it on that channel last year. It was also seen by 1.3 million on ITV. BBC One’s Christmas Day evening audience for EastEnders at 6pm was 11.4 million.

Emmerdale and the BBC sitcom, My Family, starring Robert Lindsay and Zoe Wanamaker, each attracted 8.3 million viewers.

Some 6.5 million people switched on to Alistair McGowan’s Posh and Becks Big Impression from Madrid and 6.3 million saw Who Wants to be a Millionaire Celebrity?, the tenth most popular programme in which Simon Cowell and Neil Fox each won £32,000 for charity.

The big failure was ITV 1’s World Idol, featuring Simon Cowell as a judge and with last year’s Pop Idol winner Will Young carrying Britain’s hopes. The international competition was watched by 4.5 million, while even BBC One’s resuscitated veteran Top of the Pops had 3.6 million.

The most popular film was BBC One’s Stuart Little with 6.1 million viewers. The James Bond Tomorrow Never Dies attracted 4.2 million on ITV 1.

Throughout Christmas Day BBC One had a 34.8 per cent share of viewers, rising to 45.5 per cent during peak hours compared with ITV’s 24 per cent overall and 29.9 per cent peak-hour share, according to the figures.

On Christmas Eve BBC One had a 28.1 per cent audience share compared with ITV’s 20.2 per cent. During peak hours on Christmas Eve BBC One achieved a 32.1 per cent share against ITV’s 26.8 per cent.

In a Woolworths poll published this month Only Fools and Horses was voted the most popular Christmas television show. The top-ranked episode was the 1996 Heroes and Villains, in which Del and Rodney, dressed as Batman and Robin for a fancy dress party, accidentally become crimefighters. Next was 1991’s Miami Twice in which Del is mistaken for a Mafia godfather during a holiday in Florida.

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