BBC3's Fightbox on the ropes

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Fightbox: cost around £3m to develop and broadcast

BBC3's £4m interactive show Fightbox, in which contestants fight with virtual warriors they have developed online, has proved the digital TV youth channel's latest ratings flop, costing £136 per viewer per episode
The BBC spent fours years and an estimated £3m-£4m developing Fightbox - but after three weeks on air the show has an average audience of just 22,000 viewers.

Assuming each episode of the 20-part Fightbox series cost at least £150,000 to make, it amounts to a cost of £136 per viewer per episode.

Fightbox has been broadcast each weekday evening at 7.30pm since Monday October 13, hitting a high of 56,000 viewers last Thursday, followed by a low of just 6,000 the following night, a figure that it perilously close to a zero rating in the BARB audience measurement system.

The Saturday night omnibus repeat, Fightbox Stack, has fared slightly better, averaging 36,000 viewers.

Fightbox has been described as a cross between Robot Wars, the popular show which has just switched from BBC2 to Channel Five, Gladiator and computer fighting game Tekken