So, Brookside is to be 'axed', or at least heavily sidelined, because the Channel 4 soap is only getting viewing figures of 1.4 million. It used to be watched by 4 to 6 million people, and in its heyday with the 'body under the patio' storyline it was getting 9 million. It also used to be a great show, even if the plots were a bit far-fetched, but I stopped watching in 1999 after fifteen devoted years when I just didn't care about any of the characters any more. So, I'm one of those missing millions, wielding absolute power via the off-switch.
In the 21st century the media are clearly more and more obsessed by ratings, sales and viewing figures. Programmes live or die by their overnight ratings, and singles that fail to reach the number one slot, even midweek, are written off in the tabloids as career-ending failures. It's almost as if nobody is allowed to be almost-successful any more, because negative spin makes such easy copy for the papers. The Office on BBC2 may be being watched by 4 million people, but oh dear, that's down by a million on last week, and disaster, that means 55 million Britons aren't watching, etc etc. However, we should all still take joy in belittling Fame Academy's feeble prime time viewing figures - only 3.6 million last night. Hopefully we'll now be allowed to vote out all of the producers ahead of the contestants.
I must confess that when you write a blog you do start wondering about your own ratings. Is there anybody out there? I therefore invested in a web stats tracker, only to discover that on Tuesday I got a mammoth three visitors, and two of them were me. Then suddenly Google decided to add me to their search engine and, hey presto, now when you search for diamond geezer you find this site in 17th place. Definitely wasn't listed there on Tuesday. And then yesterday the excellent Swish Cottage blog expressed mild interest in my site, and all of a sudden on Thursday I get 72 visitors. Not that I'm obsessed by ratings you understand but, unlike certain TV talent shows, it is nice to have an audience.
