[Feefs]

I think you are right about the actual number of people watching Survivor being similar to the number of people watching BB, but that is still highly embarassing for them. C4 is supposed to be a minority channel making niche broadcasting and isn't expected to get massive ratings. As it was, BB was (one of) the most popular shows on the channel by far for the past 2 years. On the other hand, prime time ITV is all about ratings, so when Survivor was one of the worst rated shows it's seen in that slot for ages it was a flop.

To broadly generalise, people watch ITV because they watched what was on before and they can't think of anything more interesting to do. People tend to choose to watch C4, so each viewer there is more highly regarded. There are also completely different demographics, with people who watch C4 generally considered to be better educated and more affluent than ITV, so are therefore more desirable to the advertisers.

Even more telling is that people talked about what happened on BB every day. It was in the papers, and even the broadsheets had to think up excuses to discuss it. We chatted about it at work several times a day and would take it in turns to check the website for news. The only conversations I remember having about Survivor revolved around it not being as successful as they had hoped.

That aside, perhaps the low profile start will do it favours. It was rather arrogantly advertised last year, and even though I hadn't been that big a fan of BB1, I still resented they way I was told this was going to be so much better than the rubbish I'd watched before. Being told it was more popular in the US than BB didn't help it much either, so they left themselves very vulnerable to public criticism. The press knew they had a good relationship with the people at BB, so were probaby happy to talk it up over Survivor.

However, one bad thing about the low profile start is that I had to log on here to notice it was actually already on our screens. I know I've been really busy and all over the place for the past week or so, but I would have probably tried to watch an episode - just to see.