News ratings have fallen since the election was called

Broadcast magazine compared ratings for BBC and ITV bulletins before and after the election was called.

For the three weeks before the election was called BBC One's Six O'Clock News had an average of 4.7 million viewers, which has since slipped to 4.5 million.

Broadcast editor Conor Dignam said this showed viewers see the election campaign as "a bore".

Mr Dignam said: "The figures show that despite all the efforts of broadcasters to connect with real people during this campaign - the process is turning off viewers and failing to connect.

"For all their efforts to 'connect' with viewers, broadcasters are experiencing the same problem as the politicians - TV audiences are simply finding the campaign a bore."

Bucking the trend

ITV Evening News bulletin has dropped from 4.6 million to 4.4 million, while its later broadcast had also lost an average of 200,000 viewers since before the election campaign.

Similar statistics have been seen at BBC One's 10 O'Clock News, with viewers falling from an average of 4.8 million from the three weeks before the campaign started to 4.6 million afterwards.

But BBC Two's Newsnight bucked the trend adding 100,000 viewers to take its average nightly ratings to 900,000