[Red Moon]

Viewers prefer badgers to Big Brother

Both feature a bunch of frustrated night owls struggling to share a crowded nest.

But it seems viewers prefer late-night live coverage of the wildlife show Springwatch to the antics of caged housemates on rival reality offering Big Brother.

Provisional viewing figures show BBC2's Nightshift - the live streaming of Springwatch's 50 webcams showing the nocturnal habits of badgers, owls and blackbirds - drew a peak of 300,000 viewers on Monday night.

By comparison, the audience for Big Brother on E4 was a far smaller 90,000.

The nature show also won the ratings battle on Wednesday and Thursday last week, pulling in 400,000 viewers at midnight, compared with Big Brother's 386,000 on Wednesday and 242,000 on Thursday.

One saga currently gripping Nightshift viewers is the cannibalism of barn owls, who have been "slam-dunking" and devouring their smaller siblings.

This was picked up by a webcam in their nesting box at the Lost Gardens of Heligan in Cornwall.

One unfortunate weakling disappeared down the gullet of a hungry baby last week and another two fell prey to their larger nest mates on Monday night.

The figures may in part be due to the fact that BBC2 is a terrestrial television channel, while E4 is only available to homes with digital TV.

Some, however, are detecting a significant shift in the nation's viewing habits.

Springwatch's 8pm BBC2 show picked up 3.8million peak viewers last Thursday, compared with

4.5million for Big Brother's 10pm mainstream show for Channel 4. On Monday of this week, Springwatch had just 300,000 fewer viewers than Big Brother.

Bryan Bland, of the RSPB, said yesterday: "We're not surprised at all that the real lives of British wild animals are more fascinating than the unreal lives of caged housemates.

"The RSPB has run webcams for six to seven years now and every year we get more hits. People will minimise webcams of osprey or peregrine nests on their desktops and keep an eye on them all day.

"It'll be EastEnders they'll overtake next - the humble house sparrow has more sexual partners than anyone in that."

Springwatch presenter Bill Oddie responded gleefully to the news.

He said: "It's really encouraging to discover that the British public have a great interest in our amazing and surprising wildlife stars on Springwatch Nightshift.

"If you think our audience are just going for the safe and cuddly option by switching on to Nightshift, think again.

"As the shenanigans of our owls have shown throughout our first week, nature provides all the shock and drama that anyone could ask for from a 'reality show' - on Springwatch, Big Brother eats Little Brother!"

Source: Daily Mail