Overnight figures showed that 10.2 million viewers tuned in to the BBC soap at its peak, while Coronation Street and ITV had to settle for an audience of 9.9 million. The average for the former was 9.9 million with the latter drawing in 9.3 million.

The BBC’s George Entwistle, commenting on the figures, said:

“The breadth and quality of the BBC’s output has been really impressive across all genres and today’s figures are testament to that.”

However, despite the strong showing from the BBC, overall, ITV still managed to hold a strong position, with the Christmas special of Downton Abbey following the top two, with fourth place going to Doctor Who on BBC One.

Other programmes watched by British viewers on Christmas Day included The Queen’s Speech, Strictly Come Dancing and the return of 90s hit Absolutely Fabulous. ITV also had Emmerdale and All Star Family Fortunes to fall back on too.

Most of these popular TV shows will have been watched on flat screen televisions mounted onto the wall using TV brackets. These popular accessories ensure that viewers can get the most from their TV sets.

At Christmas-time, when TV viewing is at its peak, these wall mounts are great at letting the whole family see the screen and enjoy the day of top entertainment. If you don’t have them, you can order them online today.

One of the most popular pursuits is still watching TV, but there are still plenty of people out there who have never considered buying TV wall mounts for their flat panel TV. This may just be because they see it as too much trouble to wall-mount these expensive devices, or they might not fully understand all the benefits.

It is a shame if you have never considered the positives that TV wall brackets can bring to the TV viewing experience. You can free up so much more space in a room that could be used for an alternative purpose. But it is not just this reason as to why many have decided to opt for these handy little accessories.

Some varieties of wall bracket allow you the flexibility to move the display around until you get the most convenient angle. This is so much better than simply placing your TV on a table, which is not only much lower down but is not really as suitable for seeing the screen clearly. You would not expect to go to the cinema and look down at a screen placed on the floor. So make it a priority to invest in TV wall brackets and make 2012 a year to remember.

The Washington Post has revealed that the “iTV” sets will be available between the second and third quarters of 2012.

Digitimes has claimed that “The displays of the new iTV sets will focus on 32- and 37-inch sizes initially, noted sources in the supply chain.”

Whenever Apple announces a new piece of gadgetry the world sits up and takes notice. This is bound to be no different with consumers eager to find out all the features and technological wizardry installed in these devices.

If this news is indeed true then it is certainly good news for those who like to mount their TVs on the wall using TV brackets. They will be pleased to find out that these two standard sizes have been chosen by Apple for the flagship machines.

What is not clear at this point is the naming of the television as iTV in the UK sounds the same as the broadcaster ITV, so it remains to be seen whether these reports have got inside information in this regard.

No matter what the Apple TV is finally called, what is expected of the device is Siri voice activated control to do such things as change channels, similar to the service enjoyed by iPhone 4S users.

Larger sets are bound to follow in due course, to appease the demands of home cinema consumers.

However, in the US, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has felt it necessary to pass a new regulation requiring broadcasters to keep the volume for TV programmes and adverts equal.

FCC chairman, Julius Genachowski, said:

“Most of us have … experienced this ourselves: You’re watching your favourite television program, or the news, and all of a sudden, a commercial comes on, and it sounds like someone turned up the volume — but no one did. Today, the FCC is quieting a persistent problem of the television age: loud commercials.”

The FCC has received 6,000 complaints about loud adverts since 2008. While this doesn’t sound like many, the gripe is supported by research from the Consumers’ Union, which found that the issue was a top grievance in 21 of its last 25 quarterly reports.

The new rule will apply to all broadcasters, be they cable, satellite or terrestrial, although unfortunately, it won’t be implemented until this time next year.

Until then, the FCC helpfully reminds people that they have a volume control on their remote control and that the mute button ‘is also useful to control excessively loud audio’.

Bizarrely, this downside is the result of another strength. As a flat screen saves a lot of space, we can have much larger screens as well. This comes at a cost, because above a certain size, normal resolution loses sharpness. This is the main reason why high definition TV is becoming more common. On smaller screens, you can’t really see any improvement, but the larger the screen, the more important it becomes.

We can get high definition video from multiple sources. Blu-ray discs were one of the first ways of seeing HD footage, but now it is increasingly available via conventional TV services. However, it does require a digital signal. In India, this is being addressed by a new bill which will see the digitisation of cable services.

This will benefit both broadcasters and consumers. There could be more channels on offer as well as superior viewing. In India, where between 75 and 80 per cent of TV homes have cable, this will have a huge impact.

In a way, digital TV and TV brackets go hand in hand. They combine with flat screen TVs to provide a superior viewing experience.

Las Vegas research firm, CBS Vision carried out the study which showed that older viewers were even more concerned about picture quality from different angles, expecting brightness and clarity regardless.

3M physicist Dave Lamb, the scientific adviser on the study, said:

“We wanted to understand how important wide-angle luminance — a combination of off-axis viewing and brightness — was to consumers, since this is something 3M technology enhances. This study shows that wide-angle luminance is very important, even if consumers are not initially aware of the measurement.”

It seems consumers don’t always realise that the way they watch an LCD TV has an impact on the image they see. Around 44 per cent of people were unaware that the viewing angle had an impact.

Even so, with 84 per cent of respondents saying that they view their TV from different angles, we can easily the importance of mobile TV brackets. Swivelling and cantilever brackets minimise the problems associated with viewing from an angle, as well as providing a better view in a more basic sense.

Not really. As well as still having access to free-to-air TV, these people are generally turning to online content in place of cable channels. Sales of TVs and TV brackets remain strong because people are still watching; they’re just getting their video content from elsewhere.

It’s also true that overall numbers of cable viewers remain strong. There are around 11.7m cable TV subscribers in Canada, so 100,000 cancellations represents less than one per cent.

All the same, with TV programmes and films available from an increasing number of online outlets, such as Netflix and Hulu, this could be a growing trend. Here in the UK, the BBC’s iPlayer is commanding an ever-greater proportion of the nation’s total viewing time and that’s hardly surprising when you think about it.

Internet TV has few drawbacks. Where once it was low quality – both in terms of the content and the picture – now you can easily get professionally made programming in high definition. Furthermore, you can watch it whenever you want. We are no longer bound by the TV schedules. If we hear from a friend or colleague that a particular programme is worth watching, we can simply find the series online and watch it from the start. We can watch multiple episodes in a night, pausing whenever we want.

Culmann has trained his camera on TV watchers throughout the world, capturing the positions and facial expressions we adopt when indulging in this most common of pastimes. He says the aim was to try and capture the moment when people zoned out, becoming wholly absorbed by what they were watching, be it a film, soap opera or football match.

The people in his photos are in all sorts of positions, curled up on settees, in bed. They are sometimes alone, or with family or friends. However, whether they are in India or Mexico, all are transfixed.

The main challenge was to get the viewers to forget he was there, because he took the pictures himself rather than relying on automated technology. This demanded that he spend hours watching people watch TV until they relaxed and got sucked in.

There were other issues too. In Morocco, people wouldn’t let him into their house without giving him tea and he would sometimes spend a full day in a home before they could relax. Even then, many weren’t comfortable with being photographed. He said India was easiest because people liked being photographed and he would often be invited in after simply knocking on a door.

A recent report has found that here in the UK, online viewing is proving more popular than in other major countries. The Ofcom report found that 27 per cent of UK internet users watched online TV each week, compared to 24 per cent in 2010. This was a higher proportion than in any other country surveyed. Services such as the BBC’s iPlayer have helped drive this.

The UK also saw significant growth in the use of digital video recorders. Over a third of homes now have one and only in the US do a greater proportion of the population make use of one.

TV viewing has therefore increased. The average Briton watches TV for slightly over four hours a day, about 31 minutes more than the average across the various countries surveyed.

We can expect this trend to continue with high speed broadband services becoming more common and thus allowing more people to stream TV programmes via the internet. It would seem that this is the future of television, with users finding different ways of watching programmes at a time that suits them, rather than watching them when they are broadcast.

Internet TV is perhaps the biggest growth area in TV viewing. More and more people now have access to on-demand services on their normal TV set, meaning they can watch in comfort on a screen properly mounted on TV brackets rather than turning to their laptops or desktop PCs. This offers huge flexibility in the way we watch TV and people are adopting the new technology with enthusiasm.

There are now many different ways of accessing online video content on a conventional TV. It can be integrated into cable TV services or played via games consoles, such as Microsoft’s Xbox, which recently released an update to its Xbox-Live service which provides a more comprehensive TV offering.

One of the easiest ways of getting internet TV on your main screen is simply to plug your laptop into it and use it as a projector. Most laptops will automatically detect the screen if there is a connection. You can then play AVI files or the iPlayer or an equivalent and watch whatever you want. YouTube now has a number of channels featuring longer, professionally made programmes, so this is another good source of entertainment.