This is another somewhat predictable outcome based solely on overnight viewing figures (something BBC Two controller Jane Root is wisely trying to steer clear of, but her channel is somewhat sheltered from having to prove a worthwhile minority role or alternatively having to prove itself in the commercial sector), and even though Johnny Vaughan's chat show was beaten by a Minder repeat on Paramount it may turn out eventually to be a reasonable success by BBC Three standards (the ex-Liquid News 8pm slot being a kiss of death for most programming, it seems).
However the fact that this relative failure was publically foreseen in advance is even more interesting. In what was a rather unusual press piece written beforehand, Johnny Vaughan presented an interesting defence of BBC Three and the principles behind it in the article 'What you'll see in my shed', to quote: "no one slagged off the Sunday Times for recognising the varying interests of its readers and catering for them with 20 different supplements", and "No one complains because an article by AA Gill in the Culture bit was so good it should have been in the main section. That's how I see BBC3; like a supplement of a big family newspaper. Some of its content would sit pretty on 1 or 2, and the big successes will move on. Fact is, we live in the age of the "salad bar" - you shuffle along with your tray and pick out what you want - and set menus are out."
If you want to be unkind you could say that the "salad bar" argument was essentially paving the way for an expected ratings failure for his new series, and in a sense that is perfectly true (especially in the post-Hutton Report 'defensive climate' that the BBC currently occupies), but there again an important distinction needs to be made between catering for the tastes of a poorly-served 'mainstream minority' and just serving up bad television that few people want to watch (incidentally I'm not implying that Vaughan's show falls into the latter category since I haven't seen it yet); of course both types of television can have poor ratings but for different reasons, but the danger is that low ratings can be excused by the former even when in reality it is caused by the latter.
It is also true that not everyone wants to watch EastEnders at 8pm, a programme about medieval monks on BBC Two or serious news on BBC Four or News 24 (or indeed BBC Parliament/BBCi or listen to the radio), but the truth of the matter is that no matter how worthwhile a programme actually is, if it is watched by few people it becomes less worthwhile as a consequence. BBC Three can afford not to be purely ratings driven but unless it is a service that targets a group of the population with specific requirements (such as the Asian Network), its 'value for money' becomes suspect with the fewer viewers it attracts, just like a newspaper that contains many 'throwaway' supplements that is read by only one person.
Going back to the aforementioned 'sunday supplements' analogy, it is possible to fragment media content (and your audience) too much, and I suspect that BBC Three has become a victim of being overlooked too many times by people who may feel that it has nothing to offer them (even though it may have something of interest). And the argument relating to newspapers that "no one complains because an article by AA Gill in the Culture bit was so good it should have been in the main section" is superfluous because it assumes that the article is important enough (and accessible enough) to get noticed in the first place.
The bottom line? Is Johnny Vaughan's chat show distinctive and high quality enough compared with the opposition to really stand out and justify the existence of both itself and BBC Three? Only time will tell, but a chat show will have to offer more than a so-called big name star and a shed in order to be distinctive from the opposition as well as reaching a worthwhile proportion of its intended audience.
