Springer Opera Scores In The Ratings, Sort Of

BBC2 broadcast a live performance of Jerry Springer: The Opera this weekend, and the results were predictable. There were protests, disapproving critical reaction, and at the end of the day, 1.7 million viewers had tuned in to watch the spectacle, nearly double the normal audience for opera on the BBC. Nonetheless, Springer was trounced in the ratings by a popular comedian and a tabloid-style action drama, so the natural order of things seems not to have been disturbed by the choruses of “Jerry ! Jerry!”