Have more celebrities really died in 2016? The answer will surprise you
IT can't have escaped your attention that a lot of famous people have passed away in 2016.
Earlier this month it was announced that Fawlty Towers star Andrew Sachs had died at the age of 86, while in November singer Leonard Cohen passed away.
The year began with the shock news that David Bowie had died after a secret cancer battle, with other losses including Terry Wogan, Paul Daniels, Ronnie Corbett, Victoria Wood and Caroline Aherne.
We previously revealed 2016 was set to be one of the worst ever for celebrity deaths, but is that actually the case?
According to BBC obituaries editor Nick Serpell, things aren't as bad as many think.
In April he reported there had been a large increase in the amount of notable people passing away.
He came to the conclusion by looking at the amount of pre-prepared obituaries the BBC ran.
At that point, two times as many celebrities had died compared to the same time frame in 2015.
But by the end of the year things have evened out.
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"The last six months of this year were broadly in line with the previous last six months of the previous four or five years," .
"So we didn't see that spike continuing throughout the 12 months."
In fact, in the months April - December there were less of the articles used than in those months in 2015.
That said, the amount of deaths has risen when compared to the last 12 months.
It's to be expected though, as that's been the case over the last few years. In part it's because celebrities are ageing, seeing as the music and movie industries as we know them only really took off in the 60s.
Even so, after the loss of so many greats most of us will be hoping things calm down when 2017 rolls around.