Magento recently viewed products not working - magento-1.9.1

Question

I am facing a problem with showing the recently viewed products in my product page.
Here is my local.xml code:
<catalog_product_view translate="label"> reference name="root"> <action method="setTemplate">page/1column.phtml <block type="reports/product_viewed" name="product.recently.viewed" as="product_recently_viewed" template="reports/product_viewed.phtml"/></block></reference>
Here is my footer.phtml code:
<div class="footer-container">
<div class="footer">
<?php $maniPage = $this->getUrl('');
$currentUrl = Mage::helper('core/url')->getCurrentUrl();
$url = Mage::getSingleton('core/url')->parseUrl($currentUrl);
if ($maniPage == $currentUrl){
echo $this->takeCategory(12,1) /*12 = brands category 1 = show images*/ ;
}
?>
<div class="block-content">
<?php echo $this->getChildHtml('product_recently_viewed') ?>
</div>.....
Here is my product_viewed.phtml (standard file from core)
<?php if ($_products = $this->getRecentlyViewedProducts()): ?>
<div class="block block-list block-viewed">
<div class="block-title">
<strong><span><?php echo $this->__('Recently Viewed Products') ?></span></strong>
</div>
<div class="block-content">
<ol id="recently-viewed-items">
<?php foreach ($_products as $_item): ?>
<li class="item">
<p class="product-name"><?php echo $this->helper('catalog/output')->productAttribute($_item, $_item->getName() , 'name') ?></p>
</li>
<?php endforeach; ?>
</ol>
<script type="text/javascript">decorateList('recently-viewed-items');</script>
</div>
</div>
<?php endif; ?>
When I inspect the elements, the from the footer is empty. All files posted are in my theme. I have my own css so may be it won't be shown as expected, but at least the div should have any data inside, right? Could you please help me with this one. Thank you in advance.