General Election Thread

I said last night the same sort of thing - some of the newspapers sites I read last night were giving a bit of a hard time , saying that he was shouting to much ect. But that's what he was there to do, to stop them going over their time.

Both Cameron and Clegg seemed to fall back on their soundbites all the time - Cameron about the "13 years of Government" and Clegg about the other two parties doing a lot of talking the talk, but not taking the action.

One thing that I got out of the debate is it's simple an impossible task and in a 5-year parliament they could never tackle all the issues they say they want to tackle, especially when they're too busy spending time on the important issues like people downloading music!

Surely the best job in British Politics has to be the Leader of the Opposition - all you need to do is say the right things, but never have to back such ideas up by actually putting them into practicel


http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/apr/16/leaders-debate-tv-ratings

Ratings for last night at the higher end of my expectation - 9.4m, though far lower than some of the crazy figures suggested yesterday. What surprises me most is how steady the audience was - pretty much between 9-10m throughout - I expected a fairly sharp fall throughout the programme.

Unless something dramatic happens I can't see the following debates beating that - Sky will be lucky to get close to 2m, while I'd predict around 8m for the BBC - it's head to head with Corrie for starters, and I'm thinking as the campaign goes on election fatigue will set in more and more.

I too am surprised to read that audience figures were comparitively steady throughout the debate. Only about two or so million were shed after the debate finished. It'll be very interesting to see whether or not these kinds of viewing figures will be matched with the next two debates - I also have doubts about the size of the Sky ratings, but perhaps the BBC debate will be the one to match ITV's figures.



I think the press has been totally unfair to Alastair Stewart from the day it was announced he'd be moderating this first debate. I know some people dislike his presenting style, but to suggest that he is unqualified to host this kind of programme as well as ITV's election night coverage is stupid - even if you find his demeanour on screen patronising. He's not just the face of a "teatime news bulletin" as the Guardian so eloquently put it: he's had a major role in all election (US and UK) and budget coverage since the mid-1980s and has reported on much of the big political stories in his time. Aside from this, he's a psephologist. In my opinion, he's more than equipped to be the face of ITV's political programming in the same way that Dimbleby and Boulton are the faces of their respective broadcaster's political programming. When it comes down to it, I'd rather watch someone who knows what they are talking about rather than a professional "actor" who can't fathom what's going on.

I agree. He was much stricter than I thought he would be though, but the rules of the debate seemed to call for that. He just about got the balance right though in that he cut people off at the right time, not before they'd made their point - but not after they'd repeated the same point time and time again.

Sorry for the big image haven't been able to resize it.

Did the set look like this?
This set is the ITV Yorkshire Last Orders set although I have no idea where this studio is.

I wouldn't be surprised to see the BBC dress their set with loads of LED bulbs that supposedly look great in HD... supposedly...

Yes, that's Millbank, as used for London's Late Debate

Noggin, fully agree with all of your comments (except one) above, so I won't waste anyone's time repeating them, as you've taken the words right out of my mouth.

The only disagreement - Alastair Stewart did a good job, IMO. The fact that he was hardly seen was surely the whole point of the role? In what way do you think he could have performed better and where was he poor?

Alastair could of let the debates last longer but that wasn't his fault - I think they should reduce the number of questions from 8 to 5 or 6 next time around.

How did the news programmes perform last night? Sky must have of had a boost for the day given the ash news.

Choose the thumbail option in the upload service, it's available when you click the little [+] link

Some different figures quoted, but
6.8m for News at Ten apparently, although that might be the peak as it's reported on Media Guardian for News at Ten being 6m( 28%)
4.1m 19% for BBC News (22:00-22:35)
2.4m 19% QT
1.5m 11% Campaign 2010

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