{"id":52742,"date":"2024-06-05T18:18:13","date_gmt":"2024-06-05T16:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=2052160"},"modified":"2024-06-05T19:16:15","modified_gmt":"2024-06-05T17:16:15","slug":"itvs-sunak-v-starmer-debate-under-fire-from-viewers-as-ratings-revealed","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/itvs-sunak-v-starmer-debate-under-fire-from-viewers-as-ratings-revealed\/","title":{"rendered":"ITV\u2019s Sunak v Starmer debate under fire from viewers as ratings revealed"},"content":{"rendered":"

ITV was criticised for the debate’s quick-fire format. <\/p>

By James Hibbs\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Wednesday, 05 June 2024 at 16:18 PM<\/p>

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As the 2024 General Election campaign continues ahead of the vote on Thursday 4th July, ITV has aired the first live, televised debate between Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader Rishi Sunak and Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer.<\/p>\n

The debate, titled Sunak v Starmer: The ITV Debate<\/a> and moderated by Julie Etchingham, aired on Tuesday 4th June at 9pm and took place for 70 minutes, followed by interviews with leaders of some of the other major parties, presented by Anushka Asthana.<\/p>\n

While the debate saw strong viewing figures, with a peak audience of 5.5 million viewers and an average of 5m viewers tuning in, it attracted some backlash from viewers, who took to X to complain about the format.<\/p>\n

Many of the complaints surrounded the brevity of the response time allocated, with only 45 seconds allowed for initial responses to each of the questions.<\/p>\n

Host of The News Agents podcast Jon Sopel posted<\/a>: \u201cI have to say a well constructed thirty minute head to head interview with Starmer and then another with Sunak would yield far more than this constrained but shouty debate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Media psychologist Jo Hemmings said in a post<\/a>: \u201cThis is so messy. Terrible format for a debate. Too many questions, too little time to answer them. These ridiculous timing rules have reduced two senior politicians to a schoolboy scrap, and a first class presenter to an out of control teacher.<\/span>\u201c<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Labour\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>
Labour Party leader Keir Starmer, host Julie Etchingham and Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader Rishi Sunak in Sunak vs Starmer: The ITV Debate.<\/span><\/figcaption> Jonathan Hordle\/ITV<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n

Meanwhile, LBC Duty Editor Tom Hourigan said<\/a>: \u201cLots of justified chat about how the format of last night\u2019s <\/span>#ITVDebate<\/span> was poor. We\u2019d be better following the French model where balance of speaking time is measured across the *whole* debate so conversation\u2019s more free-wheeling and not arbitrarily shut down after 45 seconds.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more:<\/b><\/p>\n