The BBC defended an “encouraging start” for The Nine, its new flagship daily news hour for Scotland, despite a 73% drop across its first two programmes.
The new channel launched just over a week ago, with The Nine’s first live airing at 9pm last Monday.
The news programme had an average audience of 45,000 and a 3.2 per cent share in Scotland on its first night, with viewer numbers dropping to an average of 12,000 the following night.
Read more: Alison Rowat: Marks out of 10 for BBC Scotland's The Nine?
Last Thursday, viewing figures for the show were 23,000.
The BBC said programme had an "encouraging start" and that the second show had “particularly tough competition” against Shetland on BBC One.
Read more: Is the new BBC Scotland channel magic or mince?
BBC Scotland launched last week, a year after being officially announced by the corporation.
Operating on an annual budget of £32million, the core hours of the channel will be between 7pm and 12am.
The channel said it aimed to have a 50/50 balance between original programming and repeats.
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