IF CARDINAL GEORGE PELL had a secret hope of one day hosting a television talk show, his prayers were dashed yesterday.

In a time slot ruled by episodes of The Bold And The Beautiful and Fi Fi And The Flowertots , the first of the week's World Youth Day events did little to disrupt Monday's TV ratings results.

The first of the televised events, a half-hour highlights package on SBS at 2.30pm titled Journey Of The Cross , attracted only 48,000 viewers, leaving it more than halfway down the ratings table.

It was followed by the World Youth Day opening Mass, hosted by Cardinal Pell, an extravaganza of almost three hours that drew an average of 132,000 viewers and was ranked 100th among the most-watched programs.

It was a modest result compared with the average 2 million or so who tuned in a fortnight ago to see that other three-hour worship session better known as the State of Origin but an improvement on the average 36,000 who watched a repeat episode of Insight about the same time on Monday afternoon, and still ahead of the 127,000 who watched Australian TV's high priestess, Kerri-Anne Kennerley, on Tuesday's episode of Mornings With Kerri-Anne .

Seven News was the most watched program of the night with an average 1.533 million.