One intriguing statistic from last year’s television went almost unnoticed.
One intriguing statistic from last year’s television went almost unnoticed. In October, an edition of Jonathan Ross’s 9 p.m. chat show on BBC1 had fewer viewers than Autumnwatch. Even though Barbra Streisand was his main guest, the six-million-pound man was defeated by barnacle geese and rutting stags on the Isle of Rum. Autumnwatch took 2.9 million viewers, which is pretty good for a wildlife programme on BBC2, whereas Ross got 2.8, which is pitiful for prime time on BBC1. These days everything that can go wrong seems to go wrong for the poor old Beeb. They have hanging over them Ben Bradshaw, the — in my view — creepy culture secretary, who seems to believe that the corporation has an inbuilt bias towards the Tories and a Cameron government, which yearns to chop the BBC into tiny, harmless pieces — something even Margaret Thatcher didn’t try.
But, then, why on earth did the Beeb decide to put Strictly Come Dancing head to head with The X Factor on ITV this September? While Strictly was stuck in tedious controversy — was Arlene Phillips sacked because she was too old? Is Anton du Beke a racist? (No, just stupid) — Simon Cowell’s show licked them week after week by ever-increasing margins. For the BBC to think its tired, lacklustre show would defeat him was a hubris born of panic, and it’s hard to imagine a more lethal combination. (When the singer Lucie was fired in order to save ‘Jedward’, the Irish twins, and to protect The X Factor ratings, 3,000 people complained to ITV, which is ten times as many as protested about Nick Griffin’s appearance on Question Time.)
Other losers included Big Brother, now in the TV mausoleum after its lowest-ever audiences, fading disc jockey Chris Moyles, whose Quiz Show on Channel 4 managed fewer viewers than a repeat on Five of a film nobody has heard of, Shallow Hal. That was serious humiliation. Then there was the internet company which bought Ukraine v. England, a World Cup qualifier. Not very exciting, perhaps, though while only 500,000 watched on their computers, 8 million later caught the equally meaningless England v. Belarus match on terrestrial. Agatha Christie may be ending her afterlife on television: Miss Marple on ITV was defeated by the BBC’s Waking the Dead. Graham Norton’s Totally Saturday (BBC1) got wretched audiences, fewer than 3 million, for a show that was meant to lock in weekend viewers. It failed, and the BBC now has to find something to do with another overpaid, overhyped presenter.
Apart from The X Factor, the year’s winners included the near-identical Britain’s Got Talent. More than 13 million watched Susan Boyle’s last performance, and it easily beat the Eurovision Song Contest this year. The combination of absent Wogan, the present Norton and Ms Boyle on the other side could be the beginning of the end for that ghastly charade.
Winners included, yet again, The Apprentice (10 million watched the final), Top Gear (hate it or loathe it, it gets huge audiences for BBC2), and sport. The BBC’s decision to buy Formula 1 was a gamble that paid off in spades: 2 million people watched the Australian Grand Prix — at 6 on a Sunday morning. This is the same number as saw England win back the Ashes in daylight, but that was on Sky — let’s hope the series comes back to the Beeb or Channel 4.
But the biggest audience for sport, and one of the biggest of the year, was for Andy Murray’s quarter-final at Wimbledon, the first match played under the new Centre Court roof. By 10.30 p.m., when Murray staggered to victory, 11.8 million British viewers were cheering him on.
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