The explanation for the lower BB10 ratings, people said at the time, was it was the first series not to have a 24-hour live feed. It was just overnight, and sometimes in the afternoon.

I remember reading somewhere that BB1 averaged 4.5m

But yeah, BB10's ratings were awful, I think that was when the show began to feel stale on C4 and you realised nobody really cared about it anymore.

It's weird how BB7 was seen as a huge success at the time, when it only narrowly beat BB6 in the ratings, which was seen as a flop at the time.

Although BB7 had much higher launch/final ratings as well as more hype and press coverage surrounding the series so I guess that counts too.

BB14 is proof that if Channel 5 actually put in an effort, regular BB can be successful.

I still think BB14 is the best Channel 5 series. The cast felt like old school BB, the "secrets & lies" twists actually worked out, and the Gina vs Hazel rivalry is still one of the best rivalries this show has had. BB14 also had a couple hours of live feed a day which I think helped drum up hype (like everybody watching the events that led to Daley's ejection).

If not for the Olympics BB13 would have been close to beating BB14 I think?

BB10 paid dust for being a top 3 series

Yeah, the first couple weeks averaged 2 million and week 5 was at 1.94 then it started to slip with the olympics and split eviction shows


I agree about BB14 showing that Ch5 can still get a really successful series if they do it right. It's also the one time they've had live feed for Civilian BB and look at the hype it built..
BB17 shows this to some extent too. If they had executed the others twist as good as they did secrets and lies, and had some live feed, last year would've been even more successful