Broadcasting: More than 17 million watch BBC coverage

The BBC's TV election coverage around the UK reached a total of 17.7 million viewers across its channels, the corporation said yesterday.

By The Newsroom

Published 7th May 2010, 23:27 BST

Updated 7th May 2010, 23:27 BST

Provisional overnight figures between 9.55pm and 2am showed that a peak audience of 6.6 million tuned in to watch David Dimbleby anchor Election 2010 on various BBC channels.

The peak happened on BBC's Election 2010 programme around the time of the Houghton and Sunderland South result, the first declaration of the night.

Election day saw 2.5 million UK visitors to the BBC Election website and more than four million UK users of the BBC News website overall.

There were also more than three million views of news video by UK users on the BBC News site yesterday – higher than for any other day on record.

A BBC spokeswoman added that the BBC News website saw "unprecedented" levels of traffic yesterday, with more than five million users since midnight.

BBC