THE winners went home clutching their awards and feelings of satisfaction but they were losers in the ratings.

The performance of TV coverage of two of the year's biggest prize-givings was dismal.

Both The British Academy Film Awards, the biggest date in the movie industry calendar, and the major music industry bash, The Brits, proved a turn-off with viewers this month.

Despite the presence of Hollywood stars including George Clooney and Renee Zellwegger, The Baftas on BBC1 attracted a dire audience of around three million. More than twice as many people preferred Agatha Christie's Marple on ITV1. Even coverage of the Winter Olympics on BBC2 had more viewers than the movie show.

The Brits, spread over two-and-a-half hours on ITV1, fared slightly better with an average audience of 4.5m. But figures for TV coverage of both events were down by several million over previous years.

It seems that viewers are in no mood to watch actors and performers congratulate themselves and each other. The time may have come to draw a veil over televising awards ceremonies and let them hand out the glittering prizes in private.

These days, viewers like to have a say in who wins. There are endless opportunities to vote celebrities off reality shows, whether they're incarcerated in the Big Brother house or trying to skate like Torvill and Dean in Dancing On Ice.

The public vote gives us a special interest in who wins. Only one category, the most promising newcomer, in the Baftas was put to the public vote. The rest was decided by members in private.

Organisers must be wondering what they have to do to grab people's attention. In recent years The Baftas have assumed an increasingly high profile. Moving the ceremony to take place before the Oscars has given them added importance and led to Hollywood stars making an effort to attend to help give their Oscar bids an extra push.

But when the most newsworthy aspect about the evening is that good old conversational standby, the British weather, you know they're in trouble. More people remember the soggy red carpet incident of a few years ago and again this time, than the name of the best actress.

Stephen Fry makes a witty host but hardly good television, while most of the guest presenters demonstrate that reading an autocue isn't their forte. And there's only so many times you can listen to winners thanking their co-stars, writer, director, mother and pet gerbil.

At least the Baftas are shown the same night as the ceremony takes place. By the time the Brits are televised, the day afterwards, everyone knows who's won.

This also means that any bad behaviour can be edited out. One reason for watching awards shows is to see things go wrong. Increasingly, scaredy-cat TV companies won't take a chance on letting that happen. With both the Brits and the Baftas, there's no feeling of spontaneity or danger that anything could happen because it's all so carefully stage managed. This week's NME Awards - which wasn't televised - sounded much more entertaining and had the advantage of being voted for by music fans.

The Baftas might well have to re-think its format if it's to regain a sizeable TV audience. There's a need to get rid of the endless film clips and incoherent speeches, and introduce something less formal and livelier.

Awards shows can spring surprises, not always pleasant, admittedly, and those are the things we remember.

Remember Judy Finnegan's exposure during the National Television Awards, when her dress fell to reveal her bra? Or the combination of Samantha Fox and Mick Fleetwood as presenters that turned The Brits into an enjoyable farce.

The blurb for Sky's coverage of this year's Oscars sums up what's needed to catch our attention: "show-stopping dresses, bank-breaking diamonds, heart-rending acceptance speeches and brilliant dentistry".

The current longing for celebrity gossip shows we prefer our famous people behaving badly, not just smiling and acting graciously. Remember, it's not the winning that counts, it's the playing the part. That's why reporting on the red carpet arrivals and the post-ceremony bashes are so much more watchable than the tedious presentations in the middle.

You can have too much of a good thing.

The Baftas, coming in at two hours on BBC1, are like a short film compared to the 78th Academy Awards which will probably last three times as long. Quality not quantity is what's needed. Only the most dedicated with stay up all night watching live coverage of the Oscars on Sky Movies on March 5.

Executives can take comfort from the success of awards ceremonies closer to home celebrating our small screen stars. The National TV Awards attracted 7.1m viewers and the Comedy Awards a respectable 5.4m in 2005. Last year's British Soap Awards were top of the chart with a more than decent 7.8m audience. The glamour of the movie and music industries, be it Baftas or Brits, has less appeal than the home-grown talents of the stars of British TV.