The launch of After the News was a surprise, coming only six months after a previous ITV late-night topical talkshow, The Nightly Show, crashed in the ratings and was slashed by critics.
Whereas its predecessor unwisely tried to be The Graham Norton Show without Norton or his A-list guests, After the News is a karaoke Newsnight. But, whereas Newsnight rotates panellist combinations discussing one subject each, the ITV show keeps one chalk-and-cheese duo for the full 23 minutes – for example, Tory MP Anna Soubry and the actor Jason Isaacs, or Ann Widdecombe and the Guardian columnist Owen Jones.
It may seem strange that ITV is celebrating average viewing figures of 602,000, less than half that of The Nightly Show. But TV audiences come down to what you expect and who you’re up against. After the News is, in numerical terms, matching Newsnight at a lighter version of its own game: on three of the first eight head-to-head nights, it attracted a higher audience.
However, the desire to beat a low-audience BBC2 programme may seem a perverse interpretation of the network’s remit. As the commercial channel is aimed at a majority audience and BBC2 at niche viewers, a show on the former should beat one on the latter by a considerable distance.
After the News, with Nick Ferrari and Emma Barnett as hosts, has probably earned a further run and its incursion on to Newsnight’s turf may shake the health of the BBC2 franchise. But for two similar shows to share a million or so viewers at 10.30pm feels like the equivalent of the author Jorge Luis Borges’ description of the Falklands war as “two bald men fighting over a comb”.
