[Cody™]

The tenth series of Channel 4’s Big Brother made a solid start last night with a total audience of 5.1m viewers (23.4%) at 9pm.

The 95-minute reality TV show from Endemol-owned Brighter Pictures managed to hit a 15-minute high of 5.4m – including the audience on C4+1 – at 10pm. Over a five minute period it hit 5.7m (26.2%).

The launch show was 183% above Channel 4’s total slot average performance for the year so far of 1.8m (8.1%). In 2008 it managed an audience of 2.2m (10.5%).

But the show was the least-watched launch episode of a series since at least the third one in 2002. Last year the show debuted with 5.3m (24.8%).

Previous launch shows

2008 series 9 - 5.3
2007 series 8 - 6.2
2006 series 7 - 6.9
2005 series 6 - 5.8
2004 series 5 - 6.6
2003 series 4 - 6.8
2002 series 3 - 5.7


Source: http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/rating...002207.article