The launch of the tenth series of Big Brother on Euro election day was overtaken by 'events dear boy, events,' as Harold MacMillan is reputed to have said. Channel 4's contribution to the democratic process - some light relief from the polls - was eclipsed by disfunctional political relationships on display on the News.
The recent spike in audience figures for Question Time shows how the public's fixation with reality has shifted towards politicians. And so Big Brother's launch - which averaged 4.8 million/22% share - was eclipsed by real political life. The News was leading with a Cabinet minister's resignation - meanwhile housemates were still busy checking in, and discovering that they weren't really housemates yet.
Consequently the Ten O'Clock News with James Purnell's resignation pulled in an audience of 5 million/24% share. Question Time at 10.40pm had 3.4 million/24% share, and This Week, following Question Time, rubbed its hands in glee as it absorbed the implications of the resignation - indeed, Michael Portillo's shrewd prediction that the outcome would be determined within the next 12 hours, depending on how the Cabinet reacted to job offers, turned out to be 100% accurate.
A week's a long time in politics, but a Big Brother series is just an long time. It's early days for this series of Big Brother but I'm willing to predict we'll be talking more about the politicians in the Big Ben House than the Big Brother housemates.
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