Watching brief

The most watched programme on television this past year was the royal wedding, which is hardly surprising, since we had the day off to watch it. Bagehot said that royalty was the institution that ‘riveted’ the nation, by which he meant bound together rather than fascinated. However, strange as it may seem, most people in the UK weren’t sufficiently fascinated, or bound together, to see the ceremony — they were republicans, too young, having a day out, were on the street in London, or just didn’t care. Some 26 million were in front of their sets, only 3 million more than watched in the US, where the coverage started at 6 a.m. East Coast on a normal weekday. The event left us with some lasting, indeed riveting, national images: Pippa Middleton’s bottom and Princess Beatrice’s fascinator come to mind, but it didn’t break any records.

The biggest audiences on British television remain the 30 million who saw EastEnders on Christmas Day 1986, and the largest ever, the 32.3 million for the 1966 World Cup final — which, as older readers may recall, England won.

But audiences continue to fragment. Radio Times alone lists 76 channels, and that is not quite all. No doubt there is a Watching Paint Dry channel somewhere. People are increasingly willing to seek out programmes on cable and satellite. Many audiences do remain extremely low. Some channels have such tiny ratings that you could afford to advertise your missing cat on them — not that any neighbours would see. Take Treme (Sky Atlantic), a serial about the rebuilding of New Orleans after Katrina. It had fairly good reviews but audiences were typically around 60,000. Still as many as would see a decent West End theatre run, but in ratings terms piddling.