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Jump in viewing figures proves Cowell wrong
Britain's got Eurovision Talent
The myth that the British public only tune in for Terry Wogan's commentary has now been shattered. Viewing figures increased on last year and Graham Norton has been widely credited with bringing new life and entertainment to the competition with his whit and humour. He was also keen to point out good songs and why they should do well.
The Eurovision Song Contest was challenged by ITV's Britain's Got Talent show at the start. Viewing figures began at around 6.5milliom, averaged 7.8 million and peaked at 9.8million during the voting as Jade Ewen pushed the country to it's best result since 2002.
The BBC will be satisfied with a 35.3% audience share, which rose sharply during the voting. The figure is a steep rise on the 7.1million average audience achieved in 2008.
Related polls
- Norway: Vote for your favourite song in the final of Melodi Grand Prix
- Azerbaijan: Vote for your favourite act in the final of Milli Seçim Turu
- Hungary: Vote for your favourite act in the final of A Dal
- Iceland: Vote for your favourite song in the final of Songvakeppni Sjonvarpsins
- Malta: Vote for your favourite act in the final of Malta Eurovision Song Contest 2012
- Hungary: Vote for your favourite act in the second semifinal of A Dal
- Norway: Vote for your favourite song in the third semifinal of Melodi Grand Prix
- Sweden: Vote for your favourite act in the first semifinal of Melodifestivalen
- Malta: Vote for your favourite act in the semifinal of Malta Eurovision Song Contest 2012
- Bulgaria: Vote for your favourite act in the Bulgarian national final 2012
- Latvia: Vote for your favourite act in the final of Eirodziesma 2012
- Belarus: Vote for your favourite act in the final of EuroFest 2012
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Well done Jade 
Graham was okay he has a good sense of humour but i agree Terry was a classic! He was the very reason people would tune into the show and i think some people would agree.
Terry who????
Graham Norton was a perfect replacement - and there was no talking over the songs.
Graham Norton was well and truly the best! He did well to impress me and I hope we see more of him in future contests. He said all the right stuff, didn't speak at the wrong times, such as during songs and demonstrated a great sense of humour. The man is top class! BRING IT ON GRAHAM! YOU RULE!
Graham Norton was a big improvement on Wogan, who was fast turning into a bitter old man. We have Polish satellite TV and for the previous couple of years had given up watching the show on the BBC and instead tuned into TVP.
I need to apologise to everyone in Russia... Last Tuesday I spouted on about the poor quality of the first semi - although it was a bit ropey the final was amazing, the presenters, the opening act, the interval... the camerawork had improved loads! the Beijing Olympics of Eurovision, NRK have a hard act to follow just like London in 2012! Anyway, well done to Graham also, he was fantastic, just the right balance of humour and seriousness.. I also like the way he thanked every country that scored us! having said that im sure if Terry was doing it this year he wouldn't have been as annoying as our results were excellent, think he just got annoyed with the whole thing, and lets face it so did most of us!
Jade and Andrew you really did us proud, I could watch the performance over and over again, Jade was very classy right down to the sparkly mike! Fingers crossed for next year.. I think the west wil be best.. x
YAAY! GO UK i hope they win next year
That Turkish song was an excellent song when you replay it after the Contest. I can understand why we gave 12 points to them and not Norway. I voted for Denmark actually although to be honest it was Brinck trying to impersonate Ronan Keating really.
To me, Norway's song is good, but it's a little too "shouty" and the lyrics I don't think sometimes make any sense, but that's my opinion.
Do you know anyone who voted for Turkey?
I have canvassed everyone I know and work with and no one voted for Turkey.............how did we give 12 points to that dreadful song?
I agree with most of the above. What worries me is how the BBC are going to follow it up next year. We don't want to go back to a Making Your Mind Up format with bargain basement acts.
God love yer Maza but you're obviously in the wrong country if you're expecting a BBC commentary to be straight down the line. I thought Graham did a marvellous job for his first time and as a die-hard Eurovision fan since the good old days of the 70s, I loved his take on the competition.
That's great news for the ESC.
Jade was fantastic on stage and totally deserved our 12 points.
She should be even higher than 5th place.
Maybe next time : )
Welcome back England!
@ ben are you watching the same eurovision? there have been many things that have stirred up gossip, silvia night, dana international, bloc voting, stories of people buying judges,stories of winners being pron stars, far from being an authentic programme eurovision has had its fair share of scandals during the years
Lord Lloyd Webber, Jade, Graham and the BBC Well Done for bringing back the best uk result for 7 years and for giving Eurovision a "renaissance" in the UK. For the first time in years the British people and the BBC are taking it seriously and the results have been fantastic.
WELL DONE!
For Eurovision to be holding on to its audience (even increasing it) in the days of multi-channel TV, falling audiences and huge competition from Britain's Got Talent is very good. Easily the best figures among the big four and one of the biggest audiences in Europe in terms of pure numbers.
No probs ,I agree Elena did rock ,but i could here the backing singer more than was necessary(romania wasn't the only country with that problem mind you)
haha.. I just took it very personally! I don't like British humour.. very sarcastic & cynical. I would feel guilty making the kind of jokes he makes! 
sorry Maza ,I meant to type maza originally.
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Mazi cheer up.He was very witty and honest ,If you knew MR Wogan well ,he was always bitter and nasty and rude,and constantly interrupted most songs .Some years (especially last year) you thought it was an extended Terry Wogan show.I think he meant that you could hear the backing singer heavily.He actually didn't really deride many nations songs except maybe Germanys,without giving a balanced view as to why other folk may like it.
I was greatly disappointed with Norton's commentary. I thought he was unnecassarily rude about some of the entries, and in ways that couldn't even be considered witty or amusing. For instance, he implied that Elena Gheorghe was miming her song & relying mostly of the backing vocalist. Anyone who paid attention to this performance would know Elena was singing her own song, and she rocked it. To imply otherwise is just plain weird. Why would you do that? He made a lot of similar comments that I found annoying. I was optimistic that he would do a good job & deliver a lot of comedy but he failed in my opinion. I can only hope he improves next year.
I'm pleased that Jade managed to do so well.
Although 7.8 million viewers is not fantastic you have to bear in mind that ITV's Britain's Got Talent was on between 8.20pm and 9.20pm plus the fact Eurovision received such a bad press last year and many people probably thought that the UK would do badly again.
All in all at least the viewing figures went up and Graham Norton managed to do a great job.
@ Sam: the audience last year in the UK was 7.1m so this year's was up 700,000.
In 2007 the audience was 8.7m.
In 2006 it was 8.3m. In 2005 it was 7.9m.
In 2004 it was 8.3m. In 2003 (the infamous UK nil point year) it was 7.9m.
In 2002 (our best finish of the decade at 3rd) it was 7.8m (the same as 2009).
In 2001 it was 6.9m.
In 2000 it was 6.5m.
So on the decade, whilst the soaps have lost almost half of their audience (EastEnders and Coronation Street in Eurovision week in 2000 had 14.3m. In 2009 they had 8.5m and 8.6m respectively) the Eurovision Song Contest in the UK has actually increased its audience - the only show to do that.
Long live Eurovision!
Graham's timing was inpecable. For the first time in the 34 contests I've watched not once did the commentator 'crash' (talk over) the start or end of the song. Sir Terry occasionally talked in the middle of the song which I always thought was an absolute disgrace.
A peak of 9.8 million at 11pm in very rare. So who says the UK doesn't like watching Eurovision? Away with you all you Euro sceptics!
i was a bit dubious about graham bu im happy to say i was wrong , he was a big improvement on the very negative terry wo-be gone. ive always said it was a myth that people watched esc for wogan ,at last now its proven
i thought graham norton was gonna be really bad, but i must admit i was wrong - graham was not as irritating as i thought
he was funny, whilst being informative, and did not make any (bar one) errors. 
"Each time Jade scored high points, he thanked the country!"
At first, I didn't mind that. Then it got annoying, and slightly ridiculous. His gushing and constant thanks just seemed silly... It's not like they could hear him saying thank you. Say something more interesting or nothing at all.
Sometimes less is more, and I was wishing he would be quiet. He was great during the performances though.
Graham Norton was fabulus!
He took the voting very serius! Each time Jade socred high points, he thanked the country! Btw thank you Greece giving UK 12 points tolaly unexpected!
I am glad the juries are back the whole voting was fair, no predictable voting, but on some. Diaspora, and vote for your neighbour was on a samll scale.
As for thr ratings, I am glad MrCawal was challenged!
ESC rocks and roll on Norway 2010!!!
Ben Gray
Britain's Got Talent still got more viewers than ESC so don't be so quick to tell Simon to suck it.
Still - a great result for the BBC1 this year. Excellent viewing figures when you think what it was up against on ITV!!
I must say I am pleasantly surprised!!!
Really really good.
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