Millions watch King's Christmas speech

1.963 million people watched King Willem-Alexander's annual Christmas speech, which ared at 13:00 yesterday afternoon. This is according to figures from the Rating Foundation (Stichting KijkOnderzoek -SKO), which was released this morning. Yesterday was the first time that the speech could be seen on commercial television channels. The speech could be seen on NOS, a number of regional broadcasters, SBS6, RTL4 and FOX. The 13:00 broadcast on NPO1 had the most viewers - 1.205 million. The station's rerun at 18:00 attracted another 492 thousand viewers. At 13:00, 33 thousand people watched SBS6, 147 thousand watched RTL4 and 86 thousand watched FOX. In the Christmas speech King Willem-Alexander talked about flight MH17 and emphasized the importance of freedom, tolerance and shared responsibility. Last year the King's Christmas speech, his first, attracted 2.3 million viewers. A part of the speech leaked in advance through the website of the Nederlandse Publieke Omroep (NPO) because the subtitles were ready for Uitzending Gemist (Broadcast Missed). Queen Beatrix's Christmas speech in 2012 also leaked in advance. In that case it happened on the Royal Family's website, on which the speech could already be seen the night before.