Friel voted sexiest woman on TV

[Dave]

Press Association Report

David Tennant's Time Lord in Doctor Who and Anna Friel's Chuck in Pushing Daisies have been named TV's sexiest male and female characters in a survey.

Tennant has nearly a quarter of viewers (23%) swooning in front of their screens, while one in five have the hots for Friel, a poll carried out by the Hallmark Channel revealed.

More than 1,600 TV viewers took part in the survey, which was aimed at examining the effects of sex appeal on keeping people hooked on their favourite TV shows. One in five respondents felt that actually seeing any sex distracted them from their enjoyment of the plot however.

The recipe for sexiness in a TV character was thought to include charisma (38%), looking great (36%) and not playing by the rules (12%).

A Hallmark Channel spokesman said: "Our ongoing research into what makes great gripping drama has revealed that a sexy male or female lead can make a real difference to the success of a new series.

"If you were creating the ideal on-screen TV couple it would arguably be David and Anna, but you wouldn't want to see them doing anything that distracts from the plot!"

Eva Longoria of Desperate Housewives fame followed Friel in the sexiest female TV character top 10, while Wentworth Miller, who plays Michael Scofield in Prison Break, was voted second sexiest male character after Tennant.

More than two thirds (68%) of male respondents admitted that they felt sex did not in fact get in the way of a good plot and nearly half (49%) put the looks of their favourite female leads well beyond being charismatic (26%) or not playing by the rules (10%).

Women put charisma (42%) above good looks (31%) and revealed that being good in a crisis (10%) was also an important factor in a lead male character's sex appeal.

In Northern Ireland and Wales, Miller was voted sexiest leading male (28%), while ex-EastEnder Michelle Ryan, who plays Jaime Summers in Bionic Woman, was voted sexiest leading female (23%).


TOP 10 LADIES

1 Anna Friel as Chuck Charles in Pushing Daisies

2 Eva Longoria as Gabrielle Solis in Desperate Housewives

3 Evangeline Lily as Kate Austin in Lost

4Hayden Panettiere as Claire Bennet in Heroes

5 Rose Byrne as Ellen Parson in Damages

6 Michelle Ryanas Jaime Sommers in The Bionic Woman

7 Keeley Hawesas DI Alex Drake in Ashes To Ashes

8 Courtney Cox as Lucy Spiller in Dirt

9 Jaime Murray as Stacie Monroe in Hustle

10 Kirsten Kreuk as Lana Lang in Smallville

[roguestar]

i was about to post this, you beat me to it!

[davec]

Well it's not quite an Oscar, or even a Globe, but that's quite an accolade for Anna, even if I did prefer her when she had her own teeth ;D

[amanda]

Congratulations to Anna ;D !

[joe17]

The key word in Dave's original post is 'survey'. Renders this whole deal effectively meaningless. Nice bit of publicity for Anna, no more no less. No one is watching 'Daisies' here in the UK, so this can have no basis in genuine audience reaction.

(Sorry to have to take the seemingly negative line once more. Think a bit of realism is called for. Media types are much more interested in Anna than ever the 'general public' are. How else do you explain how she can get magazine cover after magazine cover, yet her show gets almost no viewers. And, come to mention it, this board gets no more than a handful of regular posters.
The great ITV 'raise the bar and the audience will come' experiment is failing, big time. 'Daisies', 'Dexter' et al have tanked. The channel is dead or dying. All it has left is the rump of unsophisticated lumps who will hoover up its lumpen, unsophisticated output. How on earth did they imagine they would get an audience for 'Daisies' at 9pm on a Saturday night when most of the potential audience are out. The show needed to be shown in a 'cult' slot on BBC2 or C4, where it might have been appreciated, loved even. Here's betting ITV won't be outbidding anyone for the rights to series 2. RANT OVER. )

[Dave]

joe - think there are a few things you are right about and a few things which are unclear...

PD still seems to be hitting a decent share of the viewers, though last weekend all evening shows seem to be down on figures "due to the good weather" which I can definitely see...

I'm not sure what a BBC2 or C4 slot would do for the show - my guess is that it would be in a "cult slot" but I doubt the audience would be any greater... in fact looking at BARB %s , C4 barely gets 4% of the viewers as their average.... and even their top shows are not hitting what PD has been receiving on ITV....

The only show on BBC2 which receives anything like the ITV figures is "Heroes" - again all other shows are much lower....

So sure, it's not an "EastEnders" or "Corrie" (wouldn't want it to be anything like that !), but it is doing fine for the channel when compared to others....

As regards the "survey" - it is what it implies , not sure you can call it "meaningless" ?.... ...

[joe17]

I call the survey 'meaningless' because it is. If some character with a clipboard approaches me in the street and asks me what I think about such and such, I either walk on by or give him/her a load of old pony. That is what this is.

As for the 'Daisies situation', it is about audience appreciation, I think. (They used to do measures of this, don't know if this is still the case.) Don't care if 'Daisies' would get lower figures on BBC2 or C4, just reckon that if it were on one of these stations the people who did watch would 'appreciate' it more. How much of the ITV1 audience is simply made up of people who never turn that damn station off and just leave it on all night? Quite a significant proportion would be my guess and these people are sure as hell not 'appreciating' it. It is just background to them. You could put a Tarkovsky film on ITV1 at 9pm on a Saturday night and 2 or 3 million people would leave it on because that is what they do.
There is just no buzz about the show at all. Anywhere. Compare this with what happened when it was screened in the US. Yeah, I know the show is being repeated on ITV2 on Monday evenings when it is more likely that potential 'fans' would be watching, but this doesn't appear to be doing the trick either.
Have to face it. Either the show is, rightly or wrongly, hated by too many people who watch on ITV or, like me perhaps, many people are conflicted about how they feel about 'Daisies'. This board has hardly been swamped by old-time or new-found Anna fans who are lapping up the show.

Your basic audience figures are for the advertising execs, Dave. They are no measure of quality or anything of real importance. Don't know why I've brought them up. I don't really like telly. Barely watch it. Gauge everything I ever say on the subject against this bare fact. Off for another lie down.

[n2i7c]

No way there was a better female lead on the telly than Anna! She ruled!