Elton John breaks BBC record with Glastonbury set watched by 7.6 million

John’s set was also one of the most-watched TV shows of the year so far.

By James Hibbs

Published: Monday, 26 June 2023 at 12:00 am

The viewing figures for this year’s Glastonbury Festival are in, and Sir Elton John‘s headline slot was watched by a whopping peak of 7.6 million viewers on BBC One, the biggest ever overnight audience for a Glastonbury set.

This figure doesn’t yet take into account those watching on iPlayer and catching up after the event, but it drew an audience share of 48.9 per cent and was one of the most-watched TV shows of the year so far, with an average of 7.3 million viewers.

Deadline has reported that this figure was just behind that for Happy Valley earlier this year.

In comparison, live figures for Sir Paul McCartney’s headline set at last year’s festival saw an average of 2.7 million viewers tuning in and peaked at 3.9 million.

Meanwhile, the BBC’s Glastonbury TV coverage as a whole was watched by a record 21.6m people, with the audience up 7% on last year across linear television.

John’s performance was billed as being the star’s last ever live performance in the UK, as his final tour, called Farewell Yellow Brick Road, draws to a close in Sweden in July.

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Sir Elton John and Rina Sawayama at Glastonbury.
Harry Durrant/Getty Images

It was John’s first time performing at Glastonbury, and during the show he was joined on stage by the likes of The Killers frontman Brandon Flowers and John Wick: Chapter 4 star Rina Sawayama.

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Lorna Clarke, Director of Music at the BBC said: “What an incredible way to end this year’s Glastonbury festival! Elton John’s set will undoubtedly go down in history as one of the most epic performances ever to light up the Pyramid Stage and was watched by a record 7.6 million people on BBC One.”

Other notable performances across the weekend came from The Arctic Monkeys, Foo Fighters, Guns N’ Roses, Lizzo, Lewis Capaldi, Yusuf/Cat Stevens and Blondie, as well as many more.

Another notable performance came from Billy Nomates – real name Tor Maries – who requested that BBC Radio 6 Music remove footage of her set from their social channels after she received online abuse.

A spokesperson for the BBC told RadioTimes.com in a comment: “We want 6 Music to be a place where brilliant artists such as Billy Nomates are celebrated and supported, and we have respected Tor’s request to have the clip posted on our social channels removed.”

Meanwhile, Billy Nomates said: “The level of personal abuse on @bbc6music socials for [going] to work today is insane.”

She continued: “I know lots of people don’t rate me. But the level of personal abuse on that public page is too much. There will be no more shows after this summer. You wouldn’t stay in a workplace that did this to you. Why should I.”