Celebrity Big Brother Struggles To Hold On To Viewers
Celebrity Big Brother suffered a tough weekend, failing to outperform its singing contest rivals and losing the battle to keep contestants in the house.
Friday night’s programme was watched on average by more than 3.4 million adults, a dip of more than one million viewers from Thursday’s show, giving Channel 4 a 15% audience share. Soapstar Superstar on ITV1 proved to be the most popular programme in the timeslot, taking more than 4.7 million adult viewers (20.8%) compared to BBC One’s Just The Two Of Us with 4.1 million (17.8%).
Meanwhile, the debut show of new acquisition Ugly Betty, on after the first instalment of CBB on Channel 4, was watched by just over four million adults on average, giving the broadcaster a boost with a 17.7% viewing share at the time.
The “shock” arrival of Jade Goody into the CBB house, shown after Ugly Betty, fared better than the first edition of the programme. Around 4.2 million adults (23.6%) saw the puzzled looks on the faces of Shilpa, Ken and Jermaine, as the loudmouthed former BB star, her boyfriend and her mother piled into the house.
Coronation Street on ITV1 once again broke the 10 million mark, with more than 10.2 million adults tuning in to give the channel a 47.6% viewing share, whilst the revelations of Eastenders’ Sonia Fowler following the death of mother in law Pauline Fowler drew almost 9.3 million adults to BBC One on Friday evening (41.7%).
Celeb BB dropped further viewers on Saturday night, taking 2.5 million (11.8%) compared to Just The Two Of Us, which took 4.4 million (21.2%). It was a strong night for ITV1, with animated movie Ice Age attracting just over five million adults on average (25%) followed by Who Wants To Be A Millionaire with 4.8 million (22%) and Soapstar Superstar with 4.1 million (20%).
Five’s CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and CSI: Miami proved popular on Saturday night, attracting 2.3 million and 2.1 million adult viewers respectively.
With two celebrity housemates having already left the house in protest, Sunday’s search for viewers proved tricky for Channel 4 yet again. An average of around 2.7 million adults tuned in to CBB, giving C4 an 11.4% audience share, whilst Heartbeat and Just The Two Of Us proved far more popular in the timeslot.
Heartbeat on ITV1 was watched by more than 7.8 million adults (32.3%), whilst the final of BBC One’s singing contest was seen by around 5.7 million (23.6%). Soapstar Superstar once again proved popular with 5.2 million adult viewers (22.2%), whilst the first episode of the new series of BBC One’s crime drama Waking The Dead was the most watched programme in the timeslot with an average adult audience of almost 8.9 million viewers (36%).
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