The on-the-night total raised by last week’s Red Nose Day fell by more than £9m compared with last year.
Organiser Comic Relief announced that the on-the-night amount was £42.8m, down from £52m this time last year.
It is the fourth event in a row that the figure has fallen and is almost £36m down on the record on-the-night total of £78m in 2015.
Comic Relief said the total showed “overwhelming kindness and generosity” and took the total raised past £1.5bn since it was founded in 1985.
It comes as the public has donated about £200m to the Disasters Emergency Committee’s appeal for Ukraine and during a cost-of-living crisis.
Samir Patel, chief executive of Comic Relief, said: “To have raised £42m so far, with money still coming in, during such worrying and challenging times is an achievement we feel incredibly proud of rather than seeing this as a loss on last year’s total.
“We’re hugely grateful and thank the public and our partners for their extraordinary generosity, and recognise that times have been, and continue to be, incredibly tough for many of us economically over the past few years.
“Now we face the enormous rising cost of living and the uncertainty of the pandemic recovery, and the amazing British public has also given hundreds of millions to support the devastating crisis in Ukraine.
“The public often dig deep at times of crisis, and this has been shown this Red Nose Day.
“Every donation, no matter how big or small, will make such a difference and enable us to carry on supporting vital, life-changing work in the UK and around the world.”
Comic Relief announced last year that it would move to running Red Nose Day every 12 months rather than every two years in rotation with Sport Relief, which would become an all-year round campaign.
The total for this year’s event included more than £1m raised by the diver Tom Daley through his Hell of a Homecoming challenge, which involved him rowing, cycling, swimming and running the 290 miles from London to his home town of Plymouth.
The BBC Radio 1 DJ Jordan North raised more than £800,000 through a 100-mile rowing challenge.
Friday night’s show was broadcast live from Salford for the first time.