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MediaCom's Cara McCrerie re-joins Mediaweek.co.uk to cast her critical eye over the latest incarnation of Channel 4's Big Brother - and it is so far so good.

Friday night saw Channel 4’s latest instalment of the Big Brother phenomena and I can safely say that judging by this years’ contestants, they are definitely using last years’ success as a benchmark.

Although viewers never thought it possible, but I think C4 have actually selected 13 contestants even more wacky than the last bunch.

The mad house consists of Derek, a former Tory strategist; Lesley, a temp from Huddersfield; Mary, a white witch apparently from Atlantis; Anthony, a 70s dancer from county Durham; entertainment entrepreneur ‘Science’ from ‘the ghetto’; hairdresser, Craig; promotions girl, Saskia; sex-mad Sam; student Vanessa; Italian stallion Roberto; North Londoner Maxwell; and unlucky number 13, Makosi from Zimbawe.

Viewing figures for the launch this year are down almost 2 million on last year, but this is undoubtedly due to the final episode of Friends being aired directly before the 2004 launch.

Friday night pulled in just under 5 million viewers, and almost half of these viewers were in the 16-34 adult demographic.

Recent occurrences in the house, such as the ‘unlucky number 13’ twist and countless snogs and arguments suggest that we can expect these figures to rise.

Although it is too early to take a stab at how the general public will warm to this years bizarre contestants’, my expectations for Big Brother 6 are extremely high.

Last year Channel 4 learnt from their 2003 disappointment and revamped the new series to include extravagant characters and evil twists from Big Brother.

I am pleased to see that this year the channel are sticking to what they know and practising a similar format to pull in viewers.

Eviction Prediction: Science
4/5