Evening Standard from London, Greater London, England • 61

viN EVENING STANDARD Media NESDAY 30 NOVEMBER 1994 WEDN mj lottery prize Matthew Norman pf J0ik ON TELEVISION saga of the fraternal potato heads Grant and Phil Mitchell the recovery in the fortunes of EastEnders continues Two episodes of the show top the BBC1 chart these figures however tell only part of the story since they combine audiences for both the original and repeated broadcasts On the truer test of first viewing alone the residents of Albert Square still trail their counterparts in Coronation Street though the gap (500000) has narrowed greatly since the summer Whether it will stretch again IF Alan Yentob buys a National Lottery ticket this week two of his six lucky numbers could well be 20 and 17 The controller ofBBCl has taken a little stick over his acquisition of so low brow a property as the live draw for the lottery but with an audience of 2017 million for the inaugural drawing of the balls he will be losing little sleep over it Like the size of the jackpot itself initial estimates (which peaked at 23 million) proved a little melodramatic but the figure will still please the BBC especially so since it helped boost the overall share of audience by 15 per cent at the expense of ITV It will be interesting next week to see how the audience held up for the less dementedly hyped second draw In a week that saw him lose £500000 of his own fortune in a charity-related business project the lottery ratings may bring a little succour to Noel Edmonds the show's compere His own House Party (postponed for the draw) had previously been soundly whipped by Blind Date but the lottery poached four million of devotees knocking the show 15 places down list to number 27 Elsewhere the BARB figures for the week ending November 20 show that thanks to the never-ending when the last drop of milk has finally been squeezed from the Walford love triangle remains to be seen Over on BBC2 there is evidence in support of the bid saw that insists the old ones are the best An ancient almost inaudibly crackly episode of the incomparable Steptoe and Son enters at number two with just under five million viewers two places above the highly regarded adaptation of Martin Chuzzlewit Channel list meanwhile remains dominated by the usual mish-mash of soaps quizzes and a plethora of American imports among which Oprah reestablishes a slight edge over new talk show girl Ricki Lake And finally a fond forewell to Doris Speed for many years the autocratic snobbish but fundamentally kindly landlady of the Rovers Return The Coronation Street tribute to Ms Speed who departed for that great snug bar in the sky at the age of 95 drew an impressive 1011 million mourners Onto a winner: Noel Edmonds From today London has a new and exclusive Cable Channel Ring 0181 200 1000 For further information about Channel One or how you can become a subscriber please ring the number above It is open 24 hours a day NEWS YOU CAN USE.