Ratings upswing for series's live final

The live final of Show Me The Funny managed to boost the series’s ratings – although it still fell well short of ITV’s usual viewing figures.

An audience of 2.5million saw Patrick Monahan take away the £100,000 top prize at the Hammersmith Apollo, above the average 2.1million who saw the first six editions. However, the figure – 10.8 per cent of the total TV audience at the time – was still only around two-thirds of the audience ITV1 averages in that 9pm slot.

BBC Three scheduled more established stand-up in direct competition, with Ed Byrne, Mark Watson and Shappi Khorsandi among those on the bill of Edinburgh Comedy Fest Live. That was seen by 400,000 people – about par for the channel.

Later in the evening Lee Nelson’s Well-Good Show returned with 602,000 – up around ten per cent on the first series, but slightly down on the slot average.

The overnight figures are compiled by Attentional from Barb data.

Published: 26 Aug 2011