[DigitalSid]

Not including the two one-off E4 spin-offs, with 2.1m (10%). Unlikely competition, 'Horizon: The Secret Life of Cats' won the slot with 4.9m (22%), head to head (not including +1), BB came fourth in it's slot, despite, by everyone's estimations, what seemed like (but clearly wasn't) no competition. If there isn't some amazing retention now or some big viewer boosting '-gate', there's a good chance that next year could be the last of the civillian series. Wonder if C5 think saving the whole promotional budget for the celebrity series was / is a good decision now?

[Marcus.]

nooooooooooooooooooo

[Vicky.]

I'm not surprised really, the lack of advertisement was shocking.

[Black Dagger]

oh well nvm. (as long as they keep renewing the series for as long as it can be good, they can have 5 viewers for all I care)... ratings mean nothing to me, but I would have at least liked 2.5/2.6

[thediaryroomchair]

I thought BB would get 3/3.5m not 2.1m. I feel more could have been done by Channel 5 to promote the series. There were no billboards this year. Imagine if they had one saying "What's the secret....Big Brother Secrets and Lies coming soon to Channel 5". It would get those humming and haring over whether to watch it thinking ooh what could that be and this could create intrigue and gossip. We just had the main advert starring Emma Willis and a few double page spreads in the Daily Star and Express. To me, it seems like Celebrity Big Brother is their bread and butter and they feel contractually obliged to do these civilian shows.

[Vicky.]

Isnt over 2m still good for c5 though? I think their usual ratings are usually hovering around 1m ish..mind its been a long time since I checked ratings

[Tregard]

They didnt advertise the bloody thing so I'm not surprised.

[DigitalSid]

Originally Posted by Black Dagger

oh well nvm. (as long as they keep renewing the series for as long as it can be good, they can have 5 viewers for all I care)... ratings mean nothing to me, but I would have at least liked 2.5/2.6

They won't. Without some ridiculously good retention we're looking at a shocking overnight average.

[JohnnyBB]

it has to be the thursday launch and lack of ads but somthing has to be wrong here.

[Benjamin]

Hopefully tonight will pick up.

[DigitalSid]

Originally Posted by Vicky.

Isnt over 2m still good for c5 though? I think their usual ratings are usually hovering around 1m ish..mind its been a long time since I checked ratings

It'd be good for a series avg yes, for the launch? It's piss poor. A lot of BB launch viewers are non-fans tuning in out of curiosity and to take the piss out of the wannabes, it won't stay above 2m past tonight (if it even manages that tonight) unless it somehow manages to for the first year ever hang on to 95% of it's viewership (literally).

[daniel-lewis-1985]

I said this all along!

Terrible rating.

Tonights will probably get around 1.4.

Really disappointed as it was a good launch and Emma did a great job. Well done Channel 5 you ****ed up with not promoting it.

[DigitalSid]

Originally Posted by JohnnyBB

it has to be the thursday launch and lack of ads but somthing has to be wrong here.

It always launches on a Thursday, and it's never done this badly, in fact on C4 it managed 5m+ on it.

[Joe.]

really a shame, the best launch since BB11 aswell- the advertising this year was so damn poor!

[daniel-lewis-1985]

BB actually only got 1.99 million viewers (9.3%) witho +1

[DigitalSid]

Originally Posted by daniel-lewis-1985

BB actually only got 1.99 million viewers (9.3%) witho +1

The ratings in the OP include +1, I never said they didn't.

[Raph]

This makes me so sad

[JohnnyBB]

WTF went wrong last night then? everythink was perfect and the best launch channel 5 could have produced. was it the lack of housemates? weather was allright house tour was fine, emma was spot on.

[The_Big_Send_Off]

hopefully this series could pull back some viewers! allot of people are saying on twitter (Its Trending now) that they didnt know it was on last night...

plus alot of people may have been turned of by brian, knowing that the show has changed could bring in some new veiwers by word of mouth, could be a topic for alot of people to talk about at work today, lets hope tonights get a higher rating...

[RichardG]

Tonight's live feed ratings will be shocking. Did Emma even promote it at the end of last nights launch? From memory I don't think she did.

[daniel-lewis-1985]

Originally Posted by DigitalSid

The ratings in the OP include +1, I never said they didn't.

You say (not including +1) in your original post :/ maybe you're talking about something else but its not clear.

Anyway remember you said you were gonna be like "I told you so" when BB hit 3 million as you were 100% that it would well you were wrong. Just had to get that in there.

Big Brother Live: got 426k (5.6%)

[Sun Tzu.]

They didn't promote it enough. That much is obvious.

[Marc]

The secret life of cats

[SSL2012]

Perhaps a number of reasons

1)Lack of proper advertising.

After 2 years of considerate favourtism towards pushing the budget on cbb. Five need to focus it more on the civ version to save this format and make the public more aware.

2)lack of intrest...

Perhap's the format is on it's last legs and people just don't really care about big bro anymore, no matter what changes or advertising occur.

Should this trend continue, i'd certainly not advise the end, BB (certainly the celeb) can still pull big numbers, and as twitter shown last night the civ bb was making alot of noise, which no other show on he channel can attract.

I'd propose a break for a year, keep the contract with endemol, bring it back under massive publicity etc, and if it still fails then yes i'd end it for good.

And finally

3)General viewership is down all over the board

and

4)Misleading title, "Big Brother secrets and lies" without proper/clear advertising, people could of quite easily mistaken it for a documentary and not really cared...i'm baffled as to how it's come no where near the previous two launch's.

[karezza]

The BBC deliberately sabotaged the BB launch with that cats programme.