Election Debate - why the novelty has worn off so quickly

Now that’s interesting – the BBC1 Leaders Debate managed only 7.3 million/28% share, well down from the 9.5 million for the first ITV debate two weeks ago. As I suggested in my previous blog, the relatively low rating for the Sky News debate last week may have taken some of the wind out of the sails of the televised debate. The unchanging format which provided little variety from one show to the next, the repetitive subjects, the inability of Nick Clegg to top his first debate performance, and just general election fatigue – all could explain this dip.

So it seems comparing the election debates with the performance of reality shows is perhaps a bit of a stretch after all. Although it would not be possible under election rules to vote out one of the leaders in the second and third debates, perhaps the programmes could have developed more momentum and suspense. But of course that’s impossible – viewers/voters must wait another week to cast their verdict.

For three weeks the politicians gate-crashed television’s entertainment formatted world – but their format was so inflexible, and allowed so little interaction with the public, that the novelty began to wear off pretty quickly. I’m going to add a couple more reasons why this particular debate started running out of steam – David Dimbleby is too patrician for an entertainment show, the BBC's shiny set too grandiose, and consequently the programme failed to generate sufficient tension, so the leaders just looked over-heated.

I also predicted last week that if the third and final debate did not rate over 10 million, it would be a sign that the Lib Dem bandwagon was losing momentum. The result of the instant polls seem to confirm that.

There was one more sign that when it comes to television, viewers tolerance of election shows is limited - a fair number of viewers, 3.2 million, simply preferred the European football on Five over the politicians. Good job Britain's Got Talent wasn't on ITV at the time.