Massive Talent audience - but what are the public thinking?

Britain’s Got Talent had a staggering figure for its Final on Saturday, 9.30pm - 17 million viewers/68% share. However these numbers were achieved at a cost - having already reduced a little girl to tears in Friday’s semi-final, by Monday morning the show’s defeated favourite Susan Boyle had been taken to a private clinic. There’s bound to be growing concern that the figures were achieved at the expense of over-pressuring vulnerable individuals.

There’s something febrile about the audience reaction to this year’s Britain’s Got Talent. No doubt in part it is a reflection of a volatile public which has been buffeted by financial meltdown, recession and now a crisis of Parliament.

We saw the phenomenon clearly a couple of weeks ago when I blogged about the sudden spike in the Question Time audience which prompted BBC1 to propel the show out of the post-News shadows and into the 9pm primetime spotlight. The audience for that Grimsby edition of the show surged to 3.6 million/30% share at 10.30pm on 14th May as members of the audience heckled Margaret Beckett.

The following week at 9pm the show’s audience increased slightly to 3.7 million/17% share. A week later it was back at 10.30pm for the European elections and normal business resumed with 2.8m/22% share.

One interesting side effect of Question Time’s change of slot was the audience for This Week, the Andrew Neil-fronted political magazine show. In the weeks before the MPs expenses episodes of Question Time it had been as low as 710,000/10% share and as high as 1.2 million/17% share in its usual late-night 11.40pm slot. On the 14th, boosted by Question Time it shot up to 1.5 million/22% share, and the following week it was hauled into the post-News slot where it had 1.9 million/14% share. A stand-out figure by its standards, although still relatively low by the usual numbers for Question Time in that slot.

The usual profile for This Week is 40% over 65 year old – it was pushed to 43% on this occasion. Question Time post-News is broadly similar. Interestingly, Question Time at 9pm improved its share among 45-54 year olds and 25-34 year olds, suggesting that traditional current affairs can still engage a younger audience – if they feel strongly enough about the subject.

What the primetime Question Time and Britain’s Got Talent final both indicate is that the audience is prepared to engage with programmes in some suprising ways – either by watching an old-school slanging match between politicians and public on a discussion programme, or by mobbing a talent show in vast numbers. There are challenges, and opportunities, in that for all broadcasters – although it is BBC1 and ITV1 playing to their traditional strengths which have benefitted the most over the last couple of weeks.