TV Overnights: Celebrity Big Brother launches with 3.3m viewers and no celebrities
Last night Channel 5 launched the grubby jewel in their scheduling crown as the latest series of Celebrity Big Brother was unleashed upon the nation.
Amazingly, the current run is the channel’s fourth stab at the ‘desperate celebrity’ format in just over two years.
Celebrity Big Brother: Live Launch kicked off at 9pm and even Brian Dowling managed to look a little excited. As the awkward entrances kicked off, audience expectations were immediately deflated.
A unimpressive mix of the vaguely familiar joined the generic vacant glamour models, Toadfish from Neighbours and some genetic calamity called a Speidi for three long weeks of breakdowns, self-promotion and long-game PR tactics.
Seriously, though…didn’t this just happen? Wasn’t the last series only a few weeks ago? Regardless, 3.3 million viewers stayed tuned for the two hour spectacular, all hoping in vain that Lindsey Lohan, America’s favourite tabloid tragedy, would show up and have the good sense to capture her final few months on camera all for the baying audience.
The event was, of course, the channel’s biggest hitter of the day, bagging a 15% audience share and humanity’s optimism in the process.
Try as it might, Channel 5’s big ‘success’ didn’t have the fight in it to ward off an equally edgy and uncouth vehicle from BBC One. DIY SOS: The Big Build (9pm) saw Nick Knowles and his team of cash-in-hand-mates transform the home of a woman who took in her late friend’s five children on top of her three. It was all very worthwhile and probably a little more worthwhile than spending two hours in the company of a Speidi.
Viewers seemed to agree with 4.5 million people catching up with the teary transformation. The programme netted an 18% audience share and brought the biggest 9pm audience to BBC One.
Meanwhile over on ITV1, there was the type of show that would convince your shut-in parents never to leave Blighty’s shores ever again. Trouble Abroad (9pm) warned, in a rather unsubtle manner, about the dangers of following your dreams. Strokes, financial fallouts and plain old bad luck await you and your new life in the sun.
And…that was pretty much the jist of it. The cheap and lazy narrative failed to take into consideration that health problems and tragedy can actually strike in the UK too and not just in those suspect foreign climes. 2.8 million viewers tutted and clutched their pearls for the first of two cautionary tales, netting a 12% share.
Earlier on BBC One, Waterloo Road (9pm) returned for a new term after a short break. TV mainstay Zöe Lucker (still sounds a bit rude) joined the cast as the matriarch of a fairly chavy family, who wasted no time in causing trouble in the recently relocated school.
Zöe’s career has been the prime pattern for the modern jobbing UK actress, following in such great footsteps as Gillian Taylforth. A few years of a gleeful trashy soap, led to a role in a Casualty spin off, a few weeks of hard work winning the nation’s heart on Strictly Come Dancing and even a spell on EastEnders. Surely Celebrity Big Brother beckons.
3.9 million viewers watched Zöe thread the well-trodden path taken by so many of her colleagues, pulling in a 16% share in the process.
Earlier on in the day Emmerdale provided ITV1 with the day’s biggest pull. 7 million viewers tuned in at 7pm, resulting in a 31% share. An hour later, the second trip to the sleepy village fell to 6.3 million viewers and a 26% share.
I’ve been saying for many months now that Kat Moon was having a romantic entanglement with a man made of smoke and shadow, a spectre of Albert Square. The events of the last week might have proved that to be all too true.
Only a few short days after the greatest love of all was revealed to a baying audience of tense and loyal EastEnders (BBC One, 7:30pm) fans, Kat and Derek Branning were ripped apart by tragedy. Their love may have been strong but Derek’s heart was not, as a lifetime of sub-par pub grub, greasy cafes and liquid lunches, dinners and breakfasts finally caught up with the wannabe gangster of E14 on Christmas day.
8.7 million viewers caught up with the aftermath of Dashing Derek’s sudden death, making it the most watched show of Thursday night. It wasn’t all bad news though – a 37% share watched as kissing cousins Lauren and Joey were free to re-instigate the uncomfortable flirting now that Derek was out of the picture.
Kat and Derek may have only had a sweaty one night stand that lasted for six long and painful months…but they loved a lifetime’s worth.
Overnight data is available each morning in mediatel.co.uk’s TV Database, with all BARB registered subscribers able to view reports for terrestrial networks and key multi-channel stations.