Big Brother Beats Love Island As BBC Stays On Top

Big Brother carried out its first eviction of the series on Friday, with the two-part show attracting a peak of 5.3 million viewers as white witch, Mary, left the house.

The show’s first half, aired at 9pm, saw a peak audience of 4.5 million tune in to hear the result of the public eviction vote. However, this was trumped by the second half, airing at 10pm, which attracted a peak of 5.3 million as Mary left the house and was interviewed by host, Davina McCall.

Friday’s eviction special trounced competition from ITV’s Celebrity Love Island, which peaked at 3.9 million. The show’s average audience of 3.2 million was also flattened by Channel 4, despite running for half an hour more than the first half of Big Brother, with both the first and second halves of the eviction show achieving higher averages, at 3.7 and 4.3 million respectively.

Both reality shows were topped by BBC1, however, which attracted a peak of 5.8 million and an average of 5.3 million viewers to the last in the present series of Have I Got News For You, hosted by guest quizmaster, Des Lynam.

Meanwhile, BBC2’s Beethoven drew an average of 2.2 million while Five’s film, Tightrope, attracted an average of 1.7 million.

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