Those Brit Awards scored ratings of 6.1 million viewers on Wednesday night, up 800,000 on 2007, possibly because this year the show didn't take place on Valentines Day, and there was no FA Cup game on the other side, which there was last year. In terms of audience share the show scored a 24% share, up 2% on last year.
But who cares about ratings? What's important is how many people did the music business' big night out piss off, and media regulator OfCom has reportedly already received 43 complaints, which is good going. Most of the complaints were reportedly about bad language - mainly from co-host Sharon Osbourne. No word on whether anyone was offended that Arctic Monkey Alex Turner's ironic thanking of the Brits School was faded out by show producers - though with a mosh pit full of Brit schoolers it's possible producers were just concerned for Turner's safety.
No word yet on whether the Brits have had a noticeable impact on record sales, I guess we'll see when the chart is published on Sunday. The recent Grammys had a big impact on one album for certain. The surprise winner of the Album Of The Year prize at the US industry's big night out, Herbie Hancock's Joni Mitchell covers album 'River: The Joni Letters' has seen its sales increase tenfold after the win - it sold 53,812 copies last week in the US, compared to 5,044 the previous week.