The ratings are in for the first night of Prince William: We Can End Homelessness. According to Broadcast Now, Part 1 of the ITV documentary had a viewership of 1.5 million, “well behind 2.4 million slot average.” As in, ITV can usually put anything in that Wednesday timeslot and easily break 2 million viewers. But not when it’s an angry egg yammering about being keen to solve homelessness with hope. For some perspective (Broadcast Now cites these as comparison): Camilla’s Country Life in 2022 got 2 million viewers. Prince Harry’s January 2023 interview on ITV (when he was promoting Spare) got 4.7 million viewers. Gulp. Meanwhile, Newsweek is highlighting some of the terrible reviews:

Prince William’s campaign to end homelessness has spawned a TV documentary described by one reviewer as “dismal television.” Although the show, We Can End Homelessness, focuses on an indisputably good cause it got a rough ride in the media after it was broadcast on Wednesday, October 30, with many suggesting a contradiction bearing in mind his privilege and multiple homes. It all suggests William might have an uphill battle ahead of him as he works to carve out a legacy during his time as next in line to the throne.

Marianne Levy for i News was perhaps most scathing in her assessment, arguing the royal needed to grapple with the political causes behind rising levels of homelessness.

“For if homelessness in the UK is to end, we need to know why it is at an all-time high,” she wrote. “We need to know about cutbacks to social services, how the NHS is struggling to provide frontline care, the burden on GPs (general practitioners). We need to know about investment in and the building of social housing. Of these issues, and the many more that have contributed to the crisis William has announced his intention to solve, there was nothing. It made for dismal television.

“The contributors talked of hope, but what this documentary was missing was anger. William is clearly committed to his cause, but he simply cannot galvanise his audience at the ballot box, in the workplace, and in the wider social arena to fix this inhumane problem once and for all. As an hour of factual television that was supposed to prove it is possible to end homelessness, this documentary was an abject failure.”

[From Newsweek]

Abject failure just about covers it, although I still have to admit that Jan Moir’s column in the Mail was probably the most scathing takedown I’ve seen of Baldy’s Big Keen Homeless Adventure. I’m sure the BAFTA president will find a way to give himself another BAFTA though, what do you want to bet?

Photos courtesy of ITV and Cover Images.