Ariana Grande's Manchester Benefit Concert Draws Biggest U.K. TV Audience of 2017

The BBC's coverage averaged 10.9 million viewers and peaked with an audience of 14.5 million.

The One Love Manchester benefit concert Sunday night drew an average audience of 10.9 million for BBC One, according to overnight data unveiled Monday.

Ariana Grande was joined by such big names as Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus, Coldplay, Pharrell Williams, Usher, Niall Horan and Take That at Manchester's Old Trafford cricket ground two weeks after a bomber killed 22 people after a Grande concert in the city.

The audience peaked with 14.5 million viewers as Grande closed the show at 10 p.m. local time, and 22.6 million people watched at least three minutes, it showed. That made the concert the most-watched show of 2017 on British TV since coverage of the New Year's Eve fireworks, according to Overnights.tv.

It said the concert reached an audience share of 49.3 percent in overall viewers, 69 percent of adults 16-24 and 61 percent in the demographic of 25-34 year-olds.

The average audience for the live event was the largest since the 11.6 million viewers for BBC One's coverage of the 2016 New Year’s Eve Fireworks. In comparison, 14.7 million had tuned in to Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee Concert in June 2012.  

The concert aired live Sunday on BBC TV, BBC radio and Capital Radio Networks in Britain.

U.K. TV giant ITV had moved the season finale of its hit competition show Britain's Got Talent from that night to Saturday. The season-11 finale of the show, created by Simon Cowell and featuring a panel of judges that includes Cowell and Amanda Holden, shouldn't distract from the concert and its "important cause," ITV said