Good ratings for the Eurovision. This is what happens when both the UK & Ireland put foward an act that people have heard of before and have heard of after, unlike usually where you wouldn't know the act if you bumped into them in the street.

Doctor Who still seems lower than it should be, Sing if you Can still does decently to the annoyance of many and SYTYCD continues to flop.

BGT will timeshift well plus there are all the repeat showings available.

Because the fragmented former Soviet and Balkan states, and the Scandinavians, always vote for each other rather than the best song.

The only fun in watching the voting is showing off your knowledge of Europe's politics, history and geography to correctly predict the vote allocations of the smaller nations.

Plus the electoral college voting, giving equal weight to all states (eg San Marino - pop 30,000 - handing out the same votes as UK - 62m - or Germany - 82m), is a farce and means each Sammarinese has 2,000 votes to every one cast in the UK.

Corrupt.

You're talking nonsense.

There is nothing wrong with the voting. For the most part the best songs got the best scores. The voting was one of the most interesting and varied for years.

The only thing that needs changing is the same broken record from sore loser British people. I bet you don't even watch the performances.

Yes the Balkans where they were killing each other 15 years ago are all back slapping now in a song contest

You dont get it - they are voting for what in their opinion is the best song, DESPITE their often times dislike of their neighbours.

The winner last night lived in London so perhaps if the UK stopped trying to tell the rest of europe what it should like, it might do better. A little less arrogance perhaps ( although I think Blue were evidence of this approach and with a bit of luck a similar approach could even win it)

The block voting last night made very little difference to the end result.

I love the way people complain about block voting, but then the UK give 12 points to Ireland and there's "outrage" when they only gave us 6!

Exactly. Russia got one of their worst results in Eurovision last night and Turkey and Armenia (who have a huge diaspora across Europe) didn't even qualify for the final.

Come off it.

Why were the German audience booing and jeering whenever the latest predictable 12 points to a neighbour or fellow bloc state was handed out? Most of the presenters dishing out the points were playing along and making a joke out of it.

Don't get me wrong, I think Azerbaijan would have won anyway, they consistently picked up points across Europe. But it is so obviously an unfair system to have an equal distribution of points to tiny and large states.

They should release the total televotes received per song across the whole continent and let's see how it compares.

I bet the BBC will have this data. I might fire off an FOI request.

It doesn't matter. Each country has their own opinion on what songs they like and it cannot make a difference to the overall result. The booing is just part of the fun of the event.

The only people who kick up a fuss about the voting are people who don't even really like the contest to begin with.

I agree with this and therefore not going to quote what Robbie said.

No, I've always been a fan of the kitsch and unintentional humour of the Eurosong. Since childhood, I've probably missed no more than 3 song contests. But the flawed voting system, which has become more serious since the Balkans fragmented and the ex Soviets started entering, completely undermines the whole thing. It was always a bit of a laugh to see Greece and Cyprus giving each other 12 points every year. Now it's beyond a joke, and is the reason Terry Wogan quit in disgust.

Block voting aside, can you justify why 30,000 Sammarinese can dish out exactly the same points as 62,000,000 Brits? That's indefensible, surely even you would acknowledge that?

Incredible for Eurovision! After last years disaster I expected it to increase, but only to about 6.5m. To get its highest audience since at least 1999 is outstanding! There was definitely a buzz about it this year, especially with two well known acts and people will have actually stuck around for the results, especially considering it was only about 10 results before the end that we realised Jedward couldn't win.

BGT took a predictable hit, and it was obviously going to be more so than last year, considering there's less of a buzz about it and the talent really isn't that good at all. Surprised at how well SIYC held up, considering less people were waiting to watch BGT and it clashed with DW for a bit, which itself had a very poor lead in and lead out unfortunately.

So Eurovision had a 62% share at 11pm. Which made me wonder, when was the last time any programme had a share of that size at that time of night? (excluding New Year)

Guess you have to go back quite a while.

That must be the highlight of the year for France 3 then right? As (other than for Plus Belle la Vie) they're usually thrashed by TF1, France 2 and M6!

I think that's the first time anyone has asked for ratings from Azerbaijan in this thread.


Only you would round 12.0m up to 13m, and of course only when it's on the BBC.


Your expectations alone - the figures posted show it's the best rated final since ITV regained the rights.

Doctor Who looks to have flopped too - the 6pm slot obviously wasn't the problem.


Because people are idiots and have been fed the lie by Terry Wogan for the last couple of decades rather than looking at what was really going on. Blue came about where they deserved to be really - and how France was ever the favourite I don't know - and indeed this year more than any other the results, both in who made the final and largely in who made the top five reflected the quality of the songs. And it was definately more of a song contest this year with very few gimmicks.


Exactly. If block voting was really in play we wouldn't have had 16 different winners over the last 16 years - so basically over one in three of the countries taking part has won it in the last 16 years. You won't find that sort of unpredictability in many other contests.

Interesting to see Eurovision ratings from around Europe. No wonder it rated well in Germany, but the tiny Italian rating is a bit of a surprise considering how well their song did. The Dutch rating wasn't huge but then again their entry didn't make the final.

Would be interesting to see what the Irish rating was considering over 1m watched theJedward semis there, and also interesting to see how popular it is in Eastern Europe.

The 4m French rating seems a little low considering France were a favourite, but I am not sure how well the show usually rates there.

To be fair to Robbie, the 15-minute peak was 12.7m (5-minute peak would've been a little higher), so what he said about the ~13m peak is right.

The 5 minute peak of 12.94m (64.4%) is closer to 13m than 12m when I last looked...

The BBC really ought to put a phone call into Louis Walsh and RTE to make sure they enter Jedward again next year!

Excellent ratings for Eurovision, even with rising expectations in recent days due to the hype, that's still a good bit more than I thought it would get.

I wonder how Blue entering and their performance there will impact on who enters for us next year? They did alright and don't seem to be getting too much stick for getting beaten by Jedward. So it might be an opportunity to improve our entry again?

And despite really bad ratings in Italy, maybe their strong performance will convine the broadcaster to give it another shot next year in the hope that interest picks up?


For BBC1 it isn't. For ITV and Channel 4 it is very much the case (advertisers don't pay differently here - they use TVR's like the US). It's just that total viewers works as a reasonable guide for us anyway (perhaps because viewing isn't yet as fragmented as it is in the US?). And when that fails, we then look for the demos to see why a show survives.

It's not the whole story though. You've got Coronation Street where companies regularly use the centre break to launch major ad campaigns, even though it skews old.

Jedward fit the Eurovision style perfectly, so maybe they should enter regularly for Ireland.

Oh Brekkie, you 'attack' Robbie for posting an inaccurate figure (which MattJ below proves is in fact accurate), then you go and say Doctor Who flopped. Seriously?

If 8m counts as flopping, I'm not quite sure what world we live in...


I'm not sure which is better, the raw figure or that percentage share which is staggering. Any show to peak at 64.4 percent in this age is brilliant.


Maybe get Cowell behind the UK entry? Although I'm not sure 'BBC poaches Cowell for Eurovision' is a headline I expect to read in the future.

Your anti-BBC bias has taken a serious turn recently.

Doctor Who flopped? You mean with a 6m overnight, timeshift to 8m likely. Perhaps you should check that rating with past series and see how it compares.

Friday - http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/news/...grabs-35m.html

Well, TXF certainly proved it has another string to its bow last night - not only does it guarantee its winner the Christmas number 1 before obscurity beckons, there's now the chance of a shot at Eurovision.

Having BGT's prize as the RVP, and TXF's as the Eurosong entry seems quite appropriate all round really. Maybe ITV could have the Eurosong Final itself as well, it seems more at home there, with its bland Europop and flawed voting system, although I doubt ITV1 would ever get thirteen million - sorry, twelve point nine four million - tuning in at 11pm for the voting.

From MattJ:

Saturday 7th May 2011 - Official Ratings
BBC One
18:15 - Doctor Who: 7.85m (35.5%)
* timeshift: 1.64m

ITV1
20:00 - Britain's Got Talent: 11.21m (44.2%)
* +1: 0.48m
* timeshift: 1.28m (inc +1)
* series high

And for anyone interested, in the overnights the following were watching in the slots:

18:15 to 19:00 - 20.1m
20:00 to 21:00 - 23.6m

While in the officials, the following were watching in these half an hour slots:

18:15 to 19:00 - 22.1m (+2.0m)
20:00 to 21:00 - 25.4m (+1.8m)

John deserved a better slot than that. OK, another 1.5m watched last night, but for a loyal servant of BBC1 who contributed two of the BBC's biggest ever series (OFAH and Just Good Friends) and other lesser hits, it was a poor do putting it up against Corrie.

The BSI haven't served him well in the past twelve months.