[LEE]

BIG BROTHER RATINGS INCREASE FOR FOURTH CONSECUTIVE WEEK


As Big Brother approaches its halfway point, the current series is proving to be even more popular with viewers than its predecessors, as ratings continue to increase week by week.

On Channel 4, the average audience for Week 4 of the series and for the eight Big Brother shows last week (Mon 17 – Sun 23 June) was 5.1 million and a 25% share of the available audience. This is an increase of 17% compared to the same period last year, which attracted 4.3 million viewers.

Friday (21st June) night’s eviction shows attracted 5.1 million viewers and a 25% share of the available audience for the 8.30pm show and an average of 5.8 million viewers and a 29% share of the audience for the 10.00pm show. This was also the highest rated Big Brother show of the week. This is an increase compared to the eviction at the end of week 4 during 2001 (Narinder’s eviction), which attracted 3.3 million for the 8.30pm show (35% increase) and 4.5 million (22% increase) for the later eviction.

Saturday’s (22/6) live task show attracted 4.5 million viewers and a 22% share of the available audience.

Last week’s Big Brother shows on Channel 4 averaged a 46%16-34 profile, an increase compared to 43% for the equivalent period last year.

So far the third series of Big Brother on Channel 4 has averaged 4.6 million viewers. This is 15% higher than at the same stage during 2001, where the average audience was 4 million by the end of week 4.

On E4, the average share last week (17 -23 June) was 4.6% amongst individuals, making it the biggest non-terrestrial channel in multi-channel homes. Among 16-34’s E4’s average weekly share for week 4 was 8.6%.

Big Brother’s Little Brother averaged 665,000 viewers for its 7pm slot last week, an increase of 70% compared to the same period last year.

The average audience for the live streaming on E4 last week has also increased and was 168,000 during the day (compared to 70,000 last year) and 316,000 (compared to 137,000 during 2001) during the evenings. This peaked at 846,000 on Friday (21 June) at 10.30pm.

* All figures quoted are taken from unofficial overnight ratings figures from BARB. They do not take account of viewers who may have video recorded the programmes.

On the Big Brother website, there were 21,831,018 page impressions last week (17-23 June), an increase of 41% compared to the same period last year. Of these, 18,296,826 were unique users.

To date, the Big Brother website has had 99,469,188 page impressions and 77,458,778 unique users. On average there have been 3,289,972 page impressions per day.

[bananarama]

Forgive me if this is a dumb question! But how do they find out how many viewers watch any particular program?

[Glitter_babe]

I wouldn't say it was a dumb question, I've always wondered that.....

[James]

There's a company called BARB that measures audiences for TV programs.

They select a sample of households that is supposed to be a representative cross-sample of the whole country.

Each of these households is given a box that records what programme is being watched on a minute-by-minute basis and this info is then reported back.

When someone living in the house comes into the room, they have to press a button on a handset that says they are watching the television.

From the info collected, they can estimate how many millions of people - if that - are watching in the country.

[disco]

Originally posted by LEE
On the Big Brother website, there were 21,831,018 page impressions. Of these, 18,296,826 were unique users.

Which means that the typical visitor took one look and left the site.

They don't appear to bragging about the MORI poll indicating that although more people are watching it, less people are enjoying it. I wonder why they've chosen to keep that quiet..?

[Romantic Old Bird]

Is there not also something about the fact there must be more homes which have digital channel access this year as well?

I think the increase in the 16-34 age group isn't that stunning. Anyway, the whole thing is, it's a spectacle. It's horrid most of the time, but it's there and there isn't much competition. You just feel you have to have a little look, but you wouldn't be heartbroken if you missed it.

I won't get upset for any of them this year, as Paul said, you don't engage with them in the same way as last year.

It's more successful in some terms, but it's a different animal. To paraphrase Brian:

Nasty, nasty boys! (and girls)

[disco]

I've said this before, but I really do think the low quality of this series isn't to do with the contestants - rather the producers' meddling.

Given a similar environment to last year rather than the current house which breeds jealousy, hate and conflict, I suspect we'd have grown to like the housemates just as much as in previous series. As it stands we are watching the negative side of human emotion which, of course, is not as appealing.

[Honey]

Spot on Disco!