Brand’s Ponderland Debuts With Less Than A Million

The controversy surrounding Russell Brand this week delivered column inches but not significant audiences for the debut of his Ponderland show last night.

Around 983,000 viewers tuned in to see the programme at 10.30pm last night, delivering a 6.8% audience share for Channel 4 based on overnight figures from BARB.

This compares to figures of 779,000 viewers and a 5.9% share for the first programme of the first series of Ponderland in 2007, an improvement, though perhaps less than may have been anticipated due to the furore over his radio antics in recent days.

Overall it was a strong night for BBC One, with EastEnders, Little Dorritt and Silent Witness securing the channel with a peak audience from 7.30pm onwards with shares ranging from 20%-40% compared to ITV’s 8%-15% for the period of 7.30pm to 8.45pm.

Emmerdale was the only programme to buck this trend, delivering 6.8 million viewers and 32.7% share for ITV1.

Overnight data is available each morning in mediatel.co.uk’s TV Database, with all BARB registered subscribers able to view reports for terrestrial networks and key multi-channel stations.

Channel Four: 020 7396 4444 www.channel4.com BBC: 020 8743 8000 www.bbc.co.uk ITV: 020 7843 8000 www.itv.com