Channel 4 is claiming its best Christmas ratings in six years. According to C4, “more people watched over the Christmas period (23 to 27 Dec) than any year since 2005.

Share of viewing also reached a 5-year high with 7.2% for core channel (up from 5.6% in the same period last year) and the highest portfolio share since launching the free to air digital channels in 2001 with 11.7%.

Christmas Day was also a ratings winner for Channel 4 with the most people tuning in since 1999. It was also the best Christmas day for share since 2006. “Contributing to the day’;s success was Gordon’;s Cookalong Live which averaged 1.2m (9.6% share) with a peak audience of 1.4m and later in the day Alan Carr: Chatty Man Christmas Special which entertained an audience of 1.7m (5.9% share),” says Channel 4.

The channel’;s top performer during the Christmas period was the Big Fat Quiz of the Year (27th, 9pm), which brought in 3.5m viewers (up 14% YoY) and a 15.1% share. Earlier in the evening, Big Fat Gypsy Christmas (27th, 8pm) proved its popularity with a repeat of the Christmas special scoring 2.3m viewers. Bear’;s Wild Weekend with Miranda was viewed by 2.5m while festive themed 8 Out of 10 Cats (23rd, 9pm) brought in 1.9m.

Across the five days C4′;s share was up by a third compared to 2010′;s peak hours (1730-2400) and experienced the highest increases in share for whole day of any terrestrial channel Year on Year (+27%). There were even greater gains for 16-34 audiences at both peak time (+57% YoY) and the whole day (+40% YoY).