FORMER first minister Alex Salmond will host his television show from Edinburgh tomorrow, as the latest ratings reveal its measured peak audience has increased.
The latest Broadcasters' Audience Research Board ratings for December show that The Alex Salmond Show appeared as number six in the RT international ratings in the UK, up almost 20 per cent from its first episode in November.
It is very unusual for a current affairs programme to appear in any station's top 10.
The 19,000 viewers recorded for the 18:30 showing on December 7, 2017 are but a small fraction of the total UK audience for a programme which is broadcast three times each week and which appears across many multimedia platforms which are not measured in the TV ratings.
In international terms, the RT daily reach has been recorded at 35 million in an IPSOS survey. The previous peak recorded UK audience was 16,000 for the first broadcast of the launch show on November 16.
The Christmas edition of the programme will be hosted at the Principal Edinburgh George Street Hotel and features film director Jason Connery, comedienne Janey Godley, Scotland's only two-star Michelin chef Andrew Fairlie, and legendary Scots singer Sheena Wellington. The guests will be interviewed by Alex Salmond and Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh.
Thus far in his run of five shows, Salmond has interviewed the presidents of Catalonia and Lebanon, two knights of the realm, a Baroness, a former Scottish justice secretary, four MPs across the main political parties, and the former Downing Street spinmeister Alastair Campbell.
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