Apprentice viewing figures are up
Saturday October 11 2008
Bosses at TV3 are celebrating their new cash cow The Apprentice after it bagged its largest audience yet with the latest episode -- but the show is still trailing well behind its RTE competition.
While The Apprentice averaged 276,000 viewers on Monday, 517,000 watched comedian Ardal O' Hanlon delving into his family history on RTE's Who Do You Think You Are?
Despite this, TV3 bosses are confident about The Apprentice insisting, "the programme's appeal is getting stronger".
They said Monday's episode gave TV3 a 17pc share of viewers aged over 15.
After a disappointing start, with the first two episodes attracting lower audience figures than expected, The Apprentice now appears to be paying off for the station.
This week's viewing figures appear to vindicate the secrecy and investment that went into making the show headed by Bill Cullen. However, RTE remains stiff competition for the broadcaster, reporting a huge share of the Irish prime-time audience.
"On Monday between 9 and 10pm almost half of the people watching television were watching RTE," a spokesperson said.
improvement
The nine o' clock news, which is at the helm of RTE's night-time ship, reported an average of 587,000 viewers.
RTE said these figures were an improvement on last week, which saw one of the biggest news days of the year, with Brian Cowen's announcement that he was going to guarantee the banking sector.
Having moved its new drama Raw to the 10-11pm slot, RTE said the programme was performing "solidly" as it attracted an average of 221,000 viewers this week.
The two Irish broadcasters are going head to head for Monday nights, which is seen as a difficult viewing slot.
- Geraldine Gittens
