Frankie Boyle has lost a third of his TV audience as he faces a storm over his use of racist language.
The Scots comic launched his controversial Channel 4 series Tramadol Nights to a healthy 1.3 million viewers on November 30. But now he is proving a major turn-off after causing outrage with a string of tasteless gags.
In last week’s show the Sun columnist made a joke at the expense of Katie Price’s disabled son Harvey and upset many by using the words P*** and n*****. Yester-day it emerged his average audience figures were down to 880,000 by December 14.
Bosses fear even more will switch off when the last episode of the six-part series is screened tomorrow. Channel 4 were yesterday unavailable to confirm the figures for his most recent broadcast.
During the show Boyle referred to a bomb wiping out “a whole bunch of P****” and joked about the “Ministry of War” having a “department of n***** bombing”.
Despite a flood of complaints Channel 4 bosses have consistently defended the near-the-knuckle comedian. Chief executive David Abraham insisted last week: “Comedy is very subjective and the intent of these sketches is manifestly satirical.”
But critics were furious. A spokesman for Show Racism the Red Card said: “We condemn the use of racist terminology. It is never acceptable in any context.”
