Viewer Boost for BRITS

The organisers of the BRIT awards have announced a 26% increase in TV viewing figures this year- an increase of 1.2 million.

In what could be referred to as the ‘Cutting the Corden’ effect, the peak amount of viewers this year was 6.8m for the show, which was this year presented by Ant and Dec and aired between 8-10.30pm on ITV last Wednesday (25th February).

In 2014, an average of 4.6m watched the BRITS– so what was the difference this year? Ant and Dec’s awfully repetitive jokes about Kanye West’s interruptions of awards shows? West’s own heavily censored performance? The Swift / Sheeran / Smith factor? Or Madonna not entirely getting into the gravity groove and taking a tumble?

Winners on the evening included Ed Sheeran, who walked away with British Male Solo Artist and Album of the Year. Sam Smith also received two awards, scooping up the British Breakthrough Act and the BRITs Global Success Award. Isn’t pop an incredibly polite profession these days?

Royal Blood were presented with the prize for best British Group by Jimmy Page and Paloma Faith walked away with the award for Best British Female Artist. Taylor Swift, who opened the show with a live performance was also named best International Female Solo Artist. As previously announced, the already ubiquitous James Bay was handed the Critics Choice Award. And in case we were too cryptic earlier, Madonna properly fell over, view it once more from the top here.

The winners experienced the usual post BRITS bump in sales, with Royal Blood’s album sales increasing by 209% week on week and George Ezra, who was nominated for two awards and also performed on the evening seeing a 75% increase in sales of debut album ‘Wanted on Voyage’. Find out more and see the top ten performing acts to benefit most from the BRITS over at Music Week.

To see the complete list of winners go here.