Bird beats Burdz in the great Hogmanay TV ratings battle
FOR some, it was a trip down memory lane – a chance to reminisce about Hogmanay traditions in the company of comedienne Elaine C Smith.
But for others, Scottish Television’s Thursday night TV special – featuring Nicola Sturgeon, her sister and mother – was simply their ‘worst nightmare’.
Elaine C Smith’s Burdz Eye View of Hogmanay also featured comedienne Janey Godley, who – like the show’s host – is an independence supporter.
The programme lost out in television’s ‘battle of the bells’, drawing an audience of 174,000 compared with 907,000 for BBC Scotland’s coverage, hosted by Jackie Bird, according to provisional ratings data.
The STV offering was recorded in a recreation of a 1960s-style front room where Miss Smith ‘welcomed in some very interesting first footers’ including the First Minister, as well as Miss Sturgeon’s sister Gillian and her mother Joan.
They revealed that on Hogmanay the Sturgeons sometimes gather to enjoy ‘champagne and a Chinese’ – while Miss Sturgeon talked about looking after her sister’s ‘weans’.
There was also an exploration of the kind of cakes traditionally eaten over the New Year as Miss Smith reminisced about childhood Hogmanays at her home in Motherwell, Lanarkshire. The programme drew a mixed response, with one Twitter user, Craig Fulwood, denouncing it as ‘dire’ – and dismissing its host as a ‘poor man’s Jimmy Krankie’.
Eva Murray tweeted that the show looked like her ‘worst nightmare’, while another viewer, Andrew Blackwell, compared the show with a ‘party political broadcast’.
In an online blog, Unionist commentator Iain Martin said: ‘What kind of messed-up country puts its political leaders and their families in the spotlight on New Year’s Eve when people just want to forget and give thanks for friendship and family?’
Others said the show was ‘fab’, with Hazel McDonald tweeting that the show, recorded in early autumn, was ‘winning the Hogmanay TV battle in this house’. An STV spokesman said the show had not breached any guidelines on bias and insisted there had been no viewers’ complaints.
The spokesman said STV would not comment on provisional overnight viewing figures.
BBC Scotland’s Hogmanay Live show – which featured music from The Bay City Rollers – drew an audience share of about 58 per cent, compared with around 11 per cent for STV.
The BBC show was streamed online live around the world for the first time. Facebook user Kirsten Lennie was less than enthusiastic, commenting that it was ‘yet another reason to avoid watching the BBC’.
Mandi O’Hara said: ‘Will only watch it to see the Rollers and then it’ll be switched.’
Jools’s Annual Hootenanny, on BBC Two – featuring music from Sir Tom Jones and KT Tunstall and the pipes and drums of the 1st Battalion Scots Guards – had around 221,000 viewers in Scotland, an audience share of nearly 16 per cent.
The figures were compiled by Overnights.TV.
Meanwhile, Hogmanay favourite Only an Excuse earlier drew 819,000 viewers, representing a 51 per cent audience share, according to provisional viewing figures.
A spokesman for BBC Scotland said: ‘We are very pleased once again the audience turned out in such large numbers for Only an Excuse and the rest of our Hogmanay offering.’