Blue Planet II has become the most-watched programme of 2017 and the most popular natural history series in 15 years.
New figures show the first episode of the BBC’s landmark natural history series, narrated by Sir David Attenborough, was watched by 14.01million.
The opening instalment gripped fans with footage of fish changing gender and an extraordinary hunting scene where a fish leapt out of the sea to catch a bird.
And it proved even more popular than any episode of Planet Earth II last year, the most-watched of which attracted 13.1million viewers.
Blue Planet II has become the most-watched programme of 2017 and the most popular natural history series in 15 years
The bumper audience eclipses any programme on TV this year, pulling in over 2 million more viewers than the One Love Manchester concert in June, and 1.7million more than any episode of Strictly Come Dancing.
Ahead of the launch of Blue Planet II, which has been serialised in the Mail’s Weekend magazine, there had been questions raised about whether viewers would warm to marine wildlife in the same way they did the characters of Planet Earth II.
And the consolidated audience figures, which include those who watched the programme up to seven days after it was shown on TV, show any concerns were unfounded.
The success of the series, which took four years to film, means the BBC now holds the top three spots in the 10 most-watched programmes of 2017 so far.
It proved even more popular than any episode of Planet Earth II last year, the most-watched of which attracted 13.1million viewers
In fourth place is the final episode of ITV’s Broadchurch, which was watched by an audience of 11.61 million in April.
The number of young viewers is also likely to be celebrated by the BBC, as the first episode was watched by 2.3million people aged between 16 and 34. This far exceeds the 1.4million who watched the X Factor on the same night, and was more popular with young people than any episode of ITV2’s hit summer show Love Island.
Meanwhile, overnight ratings for episode two of Blue Planet II, broadcast on Sunday evening on BBC One, show that 10.8 million tuned in to catch a glimpse of the so-called ‘Aliens of the Deep’.
Extraordinary creatures included a sea toad that has evolved feet, a barreleye fish with a transparent head and six-gill shark which rely on one meal a year.
The audience figures will almost certainly rise when the full ratings are published next week.