[Clom]

9.7m..(48%)..Coronation Street
7.1m..(40%)..Emmerdale
6.2m..(27%)..The British Soap Awards
6.2m..(26%)..Big Brother: Live Launch
4.8m..(19%)..The Apprentice

The eighth series of Channel 4's reality show launched with 6.2 million viewers, a share of 26%.

The 75-minute show, produced by Brighter Pictures, saw its audience rise over the time it was on air. It started with 5.3m (22.8%) and hit 5.7m (23.2%) at 9.45pm. The show's audience then took a dramatic leap at 10pm and ended with 8m (35%) in the final 15 minutes.

The audience for Big Brother was, unsurprisingly, well above the 3.6m (15.7%) that is the channel's slot average for the year so far.

This year's launch show was down by 800,000 viewers compared to the start of the seventh series when 7m (30.6%) watched on Thursday 18 May 2006. The sixth series opened with 5.9m (30%).

Last night's show was, once again, a big hit with a young, upmarket audience. Of those people that watched the show 44.2% were from the ABC1 demographic while 41.4% were aged between 16 and 34. 59% of the audience were female.

Big Brother was largely responsible for C4 securing a peaktime (6pm to 10.30pm) share of 15%, its third highest this year. So far in 2007 the broadcaster has managed a peaktime share of 8.7%. On the two previous occasions that the broadcaster secured a higher share it was airing Celebrity Big Brother.

In the five minutes before the show started, when C4 issued its apology over showing contentious footage from Celebrity Big Brother earlier in the year, 3.1m (13%) were watching.

The launch of the reality show propelled C4 to a position in the ratings race where it was on an equal footing with ITV1. The two-hour coverage of The British Soap Awards, which began at 8pm, averaged 6.2m (26.5%).

The awards ceremony began with an audience of 6.9m (33.1%) but this then dipped to 6.4m (29.7%) at 8.15pm before rallying at 8.45pm with 6.9m (29.7%). The size of the audience fluctuated quite considerably throughout culminating in the programme ending on 5.5m (22.4%). The average audience of 6.2m was well above the channel's slot average for 2007 so far of 5.2m (22.4%).

Par score

The programme's audience was on a par with last year's event coverage. In 2006 The British Soap Awards gained 6.2m (27.5%) on 24 May in a similar slot.

The two-pronged attack from ITV1 and C4 pushed BBC1's The Apprentice into third place at the time. The reality show picked up an average audience of 4.8m (19.4%) for an hour from 9pm. Despite the strong competition the show gained an extra 100,000 viewers from the previous week.

Whilst the show was on air its audience grew from 4.1m (17.3%) to 5m (20.5%).

During the hour (9pm to 10pm) that the three shows went head-to-head BBC1 averaged 4.8m (19.4%), ITV1 managed 5.6m (23.1%) and C4 had 5.6m (23.2%).

Demographic Breakdown

1.50m - Women 16-34
1.07m - Men 16-34
2.57m - Adults 16-34

[Chrizzle]

Thats good considering the whole race row thing

[Bigbrotherin]

Less than last year but considering competition, good.

[The_BB_Detective]

its alright lol its not treable considering the comp

[Stu]

Thats really good considering the late build up , lack of promotion , race row , and competition.

[tornado]

yes but they were 30% down on there orignlal viewing at the end of the show !!!! can someone calcuate that plses

30% form 26%

[Clom]

Originally posted by tornado
yes but they were 30% down on there orignlal viewing at the end of the show !!!!

Eh? what are you trying to say? that people were switching off?

[Arneldo]

Soap Awards also got 6.2M. So BB did as good as all the soaps put together!

[Dan_]

I was pretty close with a guess of 6.5 million then .

[Cody™]

i bet if the soap awards were not on, then BB would have generated a much higher rating.

[Spike]

Big Brother peaked at 8.0 million

[Clom]

Originally posted by Spike
Big Brother peaked at 8.0 million

In the Final 15 minutes.

[Stu]

UK News
More Than 8 Million Watch Big Brother Opener
Thursday, 31st May 2007, 10:57
Category: TV, Film and Theatre
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Big Brother appears to have retained its incredible popularity among viewers despite recent controversies as more than eight million people tuned into last night's opening show.

Delighted Channel 4 bosses hailed the series opener a ratings war winner as the viewing figures equalled the previous highest peak of viewers for a Big Brother launch show.

Unofficial overnight figures revealed more than eight million fans - more than a third of all people watching TV at the time (35 per cent) - tuned in to watch the climax of the Big Brother launch show.

The figure equalled the previous highest peak of viewers for a Big Brother launch show, and beat stiff competition on other channels - including The Apprentice on BBC1 - to be the most popular programme between 9pm and 10pm.

Big Brother 8 launched with an average of 6.2 million viewers and 26 per cent share of viewing, peaking at more than eight million viewers at 10pm. Nearly half of all 16 to 34-year-old viewers watching TV at the time (46 per cent) were tuned in to Big Brother.

Channel 4's commissioning editor for Big Brother and Head of E4, Angela Jain, said: "This heralds a fantastic start to Big Brother.

"We remain as committed as ever to making this year's series the most entertaining yet."

Big Brother's Big Mouth scored 1.2 million viewers later on Channel 4, making it the second most watched programme at the time.

The E4 streaming also proved a hit with viewers as 1.1 million viewers turned over to watch live action from the Big Brother house at 10:15pm, with an average of 572,000 staying tuned until 12.45am.

Unofficial overnight ratings take no account of viewers who may have video recorded the programme