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30 March 2010updated 05 Oct 2023 8:45am

Ask the Chancellors TV debate: the viewing figures

Channel 4 reveals audience numbers.

By Jon Bernstein

Channel 4’s Ask the Chancellors debate drew 1.8 million viewers last night. To put that figure into context, that’s about double the average audience for Channel 4 News.

The station will be satisfied with the number and more than satisfied with the “noise” its programme has created in the run-up to the broadcast and since. Ask the Chancellors led the BBC Ten O’Clock News and Newsnight last night and featured on the front pages of all this morning’s quality papers.

As a forerunner to the leaders’ debates — which are likely to kick off on Thursday 15 April and run for three consecutive Thursdays — it looks promising, too. After all, the Chancellor and would-be chancellors are mere warm-up acts for the Prime Minister and would-be PMs. And ITV and the BBC, which are showing debates one and three respectively, deliver more viewers each evening in any case.

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