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The Beeb's Head of Entertainment, Wayne Garvie, stated: "What's important is that the show looks and feels like a big music show. Audience reach is fine. The ratings are not wonderful - we'd like the figures to be better. But we're genuinely happy about how it's doing."
The truth is that viewing figures for the Friday evening show have dropped to just 2.7 million since the show's much-criticised revamp last year. Before the change, the show was averaging around 4.7 million viewers.
Garvie continued: "The show also depends on what music is around. At the moment there's not a lot of music out there that's breaking through to the mainstream. It's a problem for the music industry as well. In the autumn and at other times of the year it's better, so ratings will pick up."
TOTP competes head-to-head with ITV's Coronation Street, which has gradually been attracting bigger and bigger audiences as its plots have improved. Apparently - I never watch either show to be honest.
DiScuss: Is there really no music out there that's breaking through to the mainstream? Should TOTP look beyond the Top 40 to improve its ratings? Can you remember a genuinely exciting TOTP performance?
