Viewers angry after ITV News moved for nightly show, says Walliams

David Walliams has said he believes The Nightly Show has proved controversial because viewers were upset about the news moving from its 10pm slot.
David WalliamsDavid Walliams
David Walliams

Walliams, who guest-presented the entertainment show last week, said ITV's attempts to replicate the late-night programmes popular in the US suffered from comparisons to the nightly bulletins.

He told BBC Breakfast he did not anticipate the controversy it provoked, adding: "I guess because the ITV news was moved, I then think people felt, they were sort of comparing it to the news (rather) than to other entertainment shows."

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The news was moved to 10.30pm to make a space in the schedule for The Nightly Show's eight-week run and Walliams said: "I think the problem was ITV news was not getting many viewers for ITV so they wanted to try something different and because they moved the news people were sort of angry about that."

On Monday night comedian John Bishop made his debut as guest presenter of the programme, interviewing The Who's Roger Daltrey.

He announced that Tuesday's show will be based on this week's Crufts event and his guests of the week will include Martin Kemp, Pamela Anderson and Dame Joan Collins.

The programme struggled in the ratings last week, debuting with just under three million viewers and losing more than half on its second outing, but appeared to rebound last night when Bishop's first episode drew the second highest ratings of the run so far.

It pulled in an average audience of 2.4 million and a 15% audience share, with a peak of 3.1 million.

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