On Friday night Sky One broadcast the UK TV premiere of the much-hyped Simpsons episode featuring Tony Blair, complete with a voice provided by the British prime minister himself. The Simpsons: the Regina Monologues, featured Homer and the gang on a visit to London, during which they are welcomed to Britain by Mr Blair at the airport and also run into JK Rowling and Sir Ian McKellen. Sky One was watched by 1.1 million viewers and attracted an 8% share of the multichannel audience between 8pm and 8.30pm on Friday, when the new Simpsons episode was on air. This was well below the highest ever rating Simpsons on Sky One, which was 1.65 million for an episode broadcast in February 2001. However, The Regina Monologues proved more popular in multichannel homes than BBC2’s Hidden Gardens, a Friends repeat on Channel 4 and Channel Five’s Moving to Mars.
