Russell's C4 chat show struggles

Russell Brand’s chat show has flopped in the ratings.

Just 479,000 viewers tuned into the debut edition of his Channel 4 show, featuring Little Britain duo Matt Lucas and David Walliams.

That represents just 3.4 per cent of the audience in its timeslot, 11.05pm on Friday, where he is up against Jonathan Ross on BBC One.

The disappointing figures come after his show on sister digital channel E4 also floundered. Russell Brand’s Got Issues attracted just 156,000 viewers, despite heavy publicity – about half the number who would tune in to reruns of hospital sitcom Scrubs in the same slot.

Channel 4’s new comedy showcase Blunder, which preceded Brand’s show on Friday night, also produced disappointing figures.

The sketch and character showcase, featuring the likes of David Mitchell, Simon Farnaby and Nina Conti, was seen by 513,000 people - 3.2 per cent of the audience.

But it was not all bad news for comedy that night.

New Jennifer Saunders sitcom Jam and Jerusalem won an impressive audience of 6.7 million (27.6 per cent) despite being scheduled against ITV1’s hugely successful I'm A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! (which was seen by 7.6 million).

And Have I Got News For You, which preceded it, had an audience of 6.4 million.

Published: 27 Nov 2006