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BBC1 finds trouble in Paradise

Paradise: duffed up in ratings by elderly spinster

Johnny Vaughan and Denise Van Outen's struggling BBC1 show Passport to Paradise suffered the humiliation of being beaten by a 17-year-old repeat of Miss Marple on BBC2 on Saturday night.
Despite the much-vaunted chemistry between the pair, over a million viewers have deserted Passport to Paradise since it launched four weeks ago with an audience of 4 million.

Just 2.8 million viewers tuned in on Saturday to watch the show - which mixes games, outside broadcasts and cheeky banter - its worst ratings yet.

It was narrowly beaten by a repeat of a 1987 episode of Miss Marple on BBC2.

However, BBC1 controller Lorraine Heggessey refused to rule out commission a second series.

"It's way to early to say at this stage, but there is nothing that I have seen so far that would make me say no," she said.

"It's not just about ratings. We are about growing shows at the BBC and we have already done much to improve it over its four week run."

Overall, however, BBC1 beat ITV1 on Saturday with a 29.9% peaktime share compared to ITV1's 19.5%.

ITV's outdoor celebrity challenge show Simply the Best managed just 3.3 million viewers - well below BBC1's National Lottery and Casualty with 5.1 and 7.1 million respectively.

On Sunday ITV hit back with a 29.4% share of peaktime audiences, boosted when 7.3 million viewers tuned in for Where the Heart Is.

However, the channel's six-part wartime drama Island at War managed just 4.7 million and a 20.5% share against BBC1 investigation series Waking the Dead, which drew 8.1 million viewers.

On Friday BBC1's new series of Celebrity Mastermind stimulated the minds of 4.8 million viewers, just short of ITV1's veteran drama Midsomer Murders, starring John Nettles. The sleuth took 5.2 million and a 25% share of the available audience.

Big Brother also continued to perform well for Channel 4.

The reality show's Friday night eviction provided its second best ratings of the series so far, with 6 million witnessing the exit of self-proclaimed "milkman" Victor.

It helped boost Channel 4's overall share for the week to 13.3%, a new two-year high for the channel.

Channel 4's new chief executive Andy Duncan has Big Brother, Supernanny and Wife Swap to thank for the continued bumper performance of his channel, calculated by share of all hours of viewing.


mediaguardian

thank the lord!! What an awful load of rubbish!

When will the broadcasters understand that when they start broadcasting endless repeats on umpteen satellite/cable stations that viewing figures will increase. Who says choice is a good thing? There's so much TV now that I'm put off looking for anything to watch. Give me back the good old days when you could find the same programme at the same time on each week. People like regularity. It fits in more easily with our busy lives.

As for Johnny and Denise, I only saw it once and thought what a load of crap. Will Denise ever drop the Essex slapper image? It's so over-used and dated now

saw it once.......an awful mess of a programme.
Not at all suprised it's been dumped.

Poor continuity, poor presenting, poor "games".

By the looks of it, Johnny might not stay in his job at Capital if his show doesn't pick-up soon.

DJ Vaughan loses Tarrant listeners

Johnny Vaughan has lost nearly 400,000 listeners from the Capital FM breakfast show since taking over from Chris Tarrant.

Vaughan replaced Tarrant at the London station in April amid a blaze of publicity.

But in his first nine weeks his audience slumped to 1,191,000. Tarrant's show this time last year pulled in 1,577,000 - a difference of 386,000 listeners.

Tarrant, who occupied the presenter's chair for 17 years, broadcast his show from 7-10am whereas Vaughan's show goes out from 6-9am.

When compared like with like against Tarrant's 6-9am audience, Vaughan has lost 254,000 listeners.

Capital bosses insisted they were not worried by the figures, published by industry body Rajar.

"Johnny has only been doing the show for nine weeks and it is very early days. We hope the show has got a very long future," a spokesman said.

"When you launch a new show there is always going to be some shedding of audiences as people get used to it, particularly after 17 years of Chris Tarrant.

"But we are still the number one show in London, trouncing Chris Moyles on Radio 1 and beating Terry Wogan on Radio 2, and we have had fantastic feedback from listeners."

Capital has suffered a disastrous year overall, with 517,000 listeners deserting the station in the past 12 months.
Ananova