[*mazedsalv**]

I honestly don't know. I know CBB15 recovered very well from BB15/CBB14 being the lowest at the time, and now CBB17 will follow a BB16/CBB16 which were the new lowest rated, so will it recover, time will tell?

I'd say in terms of where BB stands at the moment, they are in a better position now than we would have been if there was no CBB16 inbetween BB16 and CBB17. I know just like BB15, BB16 rubbed a lot of people up the wrong way.

So I think CBB16 was a generally well received series compared to the latest civilian series, with a winner which fit the bill more than a lot of the other winners. So, I think C5 will be happy they had CBB16 as a welcome break because BB16 got such a frosty reception and CBB16 didn't.

So IMO, CBB17 is in a better position in the case that it followed a series which didn't piss many people off.

But will CBB17 be the lowest winter CBB ever? That stands as CBB9s 2.6m official average right now. The thing with CBB17 is that I don't think they will have a standout character like the last two Jan series (Jim and Hopkins). So it could suffer from that. CBB16 had Janice which was a big draw but it didn't stop it from being the lowest rated CBB (even though it was up half a million from BB16 which is a decent lift).

I'm going to say that it will be the first CBB winter series to launch under 3m.

2.6m overnight (3m official), and an official average of 2.5m (overnight average of 2.1m).