[Omah]

The final episode of the regular Big Brother format fell short of former glories last night, with an average audience of 4m.

The marathon three-hour show started modestly, with 3.2m (14.4%) tuning in at 8pm, but it passed the 4m barrier at 9pm, according to overnight Barb figures supplied by Attentional.

It kept building its audience from there, with 4.3m (18.6%) watching the crowning – and subsequent re-entry – of the 11th and final series winner Josie Gibson.

It managed two five-minute peaks of 5.1m and the final hour, given over to the return of former housemates battling to become the Ultimate Big Brother contestant, built to a 15-minute peak of 4.6m (24.4%) in is closing stages just before 11pm.

A further 146,700 (0.8%) watched on C4+1.

It performed better than last year’s final, which mustered an overnight figure of 2.9m and a total consolidated audience of 3.4m viewers, and was roughly in line with the 2008 final’s audience of 4.2m.

But it was a far cry from 2006, when a total audience of 8.2m tuned in to see Anthony Hutton crowned the winner.

This year’s series consistently pulled in an average total audience of 2.7m (13.9%) for its peaktime editions, which the majority keeping well above 2m. This is just slightly up on last year’s average of 2.6m (12.9%).

http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/rating...017348.article