[Arneldo]

An audience of 5.4m tuned in to see a new batch of contestants enter the Big Brother house last night.

The figure, which includes viewing on C4+1, accounted for 25% of the total viewing audience. It is a fall of 800,000 from 2007, when 6.2m (26%) watched the start of Big Brother 8.

The first episode of the seventh series attracted 6.9m (30.6%).

Channel 4 said last night's show attracted a strong 41% share of viewing among 16- 34-year-olds.

Later on, 2.1m (16.5%) watched The Big Brother Launch Night Project at 10.40pm, 382,100 (2.9%) watched E4's live stream from 10.30pm to 11.40pm, and 314,000 (4.9%) saw this year's first Big Brother's Big Mouth at 11.40pm.

Angela Jain, commissioning editor for Big Brother and Head of E4, said: "This is a strong start for Big Brother 9 and it's fantastic that over a quarter of everyone watching TV last night tuned in to see the launch.

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

DS

[*mazedsalv**]

Im glad it peaked at 6.1 million though.

[Spike]

Very good peak shows there is still interest in the show. I think the series will be like BB3/BB5 and increase in the ratings

[Xander]

Thats still a good figure though, I'm happy with it.
I hope as the series goes along the ratings will increase and see a even bigger final night ratings.

[ProjectWeirdo]

A quarter? Wow, that's great!!

I still hope it climbs a little, though...

[Hades]

Peaks mean nothing. Lots of additional people switch over for two minuets just to see what its like. Thats all a peak is.

And even if it did mean something , BB8's peak was an almighty eight million.

Theirs no need to try and re-assure yourself that BB9 did well due to its peak. Enjoy the show for yerselves and stop worrying so much about the ratings I would say.

[Spike]

Originally posted by Hades
Peaks mean nothing. Lots of additional people switch over for tow minuets just to see what its like. Thats all a peak is.

And even if it did mean something , BB8's peak was an almighty eight million.

Theirs no need to try and re-assure yourself that BB9 did well due to its peak. Enjoy the show for yerselves and stop worrying so much about the ratings I would say.

Well they still have an interest in the show to turn over.
The BB8 peak was good but because of the all female launch it tuned alot of that 8million people away.

[Hades]

Originally posted by Spike

Well they still have an interest in the show to turn over.
The BB8 peak was good but because of the all female launch it tuned alot of that 8million people away.

And a lot of the 6 million peak will be lost too. I fully expect it to be halved , in fact.

The sooner people look at things realisticaly the better , because this show COULD easily get the worst average in BB history , but BB die hards will constantly make excuses.