There was a time when 435 complaints about a TV show was news, but in these post-Racist-Celebrity Big Brother days any show that gets less than 10,000 complaints is just not trying hard enough. But 435 viewers did complain about remarks made by Russell Brand during Wednesday night's Brit Awards - 300 calling ITV directly, another 135 lodging complaints with media regulator OfCom.
OfCom confirmed most of the complaints it has received were about "the tone of the jokes made during the ceremony", with Brand's gags about the Queen, the Iraq War and Robbie Williams' recently announced admission to rehab seemingly causing particular offence. The Iraq War gag preceded the International Breakthrough award, with Brand remarking "I think a good international breakthrough would be if the British and American soldiers tell each other where they are standing", which I think's quite a good gag, but it seemingly garnered a few boos at the event itself, as well as complaints from viewers.
ITV also confirmed it had received complaints, and that most of those complaints were about Brand's gags (rather than any swearing, which was bleeped out before the 9pm watershed). The network apologised if any offence had been caused by the Brits show, but added that Brand was "an edgy host for an edgy event" (I think they mean "an irritating host for a heavily sponsored corporate event" - but we won't get pedantic about these things, as I say, while Brand might be an irritating git, I thought most of his gags were quite funny).
Of more concern to both ITV and the Brits organisers will be how many people tuned in, more so than how many of those viewers were offended. The good news is that overnight ratings suggest viewing figures were up from last year, from 4.6 million viewers in 2006 to 5.3 million viewers this year, with the decision to air the event live possibly providing the audience boost. That said, the music awards didn't equal the 6.3 million viewers who tuned in in 2005, nor did it beat the Arsenal v Bolton match BBC 1 screened against it, which drew in 6.2 million viewers. Though, as we've no doubt said before, TV ratings are all a bit made up, so who knows how many people really tuned in in 2005, 2006 or 2007? Though, at the very least, we do know for certain 435 easily offended people were watching.