More criticism for the BBC's digital youth channel. Viewers to its quirky news show called, erm, The News Show, fell so low on 28 Mar that its official rating figure was zero! The show, which enjoyed 91,000 viewers at launch, was down to about 1000 viewers a day last week. Critics argue that a commitment to current affairs was a key condition of the government allowing BBC 3 to go ahead, and that for a news show to perform so badly during wartime is very poor. However, as the BBC pointed out, it is during a serious news period that you might expect a more flippant / alternative news programme to lose viewers to the more traditional rolling news channels.
"We are realistic. We don't expect people to turn to The News Show during the war. They are going to watch rolling news channels," a BBC3 spokeswoman said. "The News Show has had good figures. We are trying something new with news on the channel and we're the only multichannel entertainment service with a news show. We hope viewing figures will pick up once things get back to normal."