It will be alright. Week 3 Saturday had 930k viewers, before getting 1.1m again the next Saturday.

I still hold hope, 1.61m was a good rating for Friday for this BBs standard, and there is no way they lost half the audience just because Aden is gone. It's a blip

Shame really...as it`s been a great series...and it certainly deserves better ratings than it`s been getting....I think BB is now a cult show for the die hards.....If this series had come after BB3 or BB5 it would have been hailed as an all time classic....as it stands it will only be remembered by the devoted hard core fan....In much the same way as BBCH which was loved by many...but watched by only a few hundred thousand.

Nice to see that Saturday produced yet another excellent result for C5. BB's audience share at 4.6% outperformed their other shows by over 50% from 3.1% and yet again BB gave the channel its biggest show of the night. This stellar result got the channel an overall audience share only 0.4% behind C4. In fact, if C4 hadn't boosted their figures with a Die Hard movie, C5 would have beaten them in the prime time ratings, which would have been a rare achievement.

With the staggeringly huge level of time shifting that takes place on Saturdays (the last night for which we have officials gathered an almost unbelievable 35% uplift from recordings which is about twice BB's average) this figure will probably become a worthy 1.20m on officials. I reckon all fans should be delighted that BB is finally making significant and welcome progress in eliminating the traditional BB Saturday lull….

Being serious though (I was trying to counter the headless chickens and vultures), the previous Saturday low on overnights of 0.90m came after the highest show of the series of 1.93m. It's almost as if everyone collectively gets emotionally exhausted by a good show and decides to take a rest for a day. BB does, after all, require a massive daily commitment. Personally I forgot it was on last night.

Anyhow, on more important matters, the show continues to provide healthy trends with week 5 providing the third consecutive week of improving ratings, increasing by 1.6% on week 4. This follows on from week 4's 3.1% increase in overnights on week 3 and week 3's 1.5% increase in officials on week 2. It follows that if the recent increases in overnights are reflected in the official figures, the ratings for week 5 will have increased by 6% on week 2, with steady growth each week.

This means the current series average on overnights is 1.34m (or 1.36m if you weight the interview show by a half and the launch night by 1.5) with the likely official series average being currently 1.56m (or 1.59m). The combined average for CBB plus BB after 8 weeks is 2.00m.

I'll fetch a hammer and some nails for Jeff Ford. He's more or less single handedly responsible for this fiasco.

Nope...your blinded by the lack of LF....yes I`d like the LF as well...but if you take the show as it is it`s up there with the best.....I think you could count the dull/non event episodes on one hand for this series....Something seems to happen virtually everyday.

Yes you could argue it`s a semi scripted soap opera...and yes it`s not BB1 or BB2...and yes the editing and production are different....but it`s now 2011...not 2001...but on the whole BB have let things roll....No nomination twists or manipulation...and off the top of my head I can`t remember any obvious interference from BB...apart from setting up the dates between Aaron and Faye and Jay and Louise

You are either Jeff Ford or Mr Blonde...not quite sure which But good work to make the absolutely horrific viewing figures BB-lite is getting seem OK Which they indeed would be, had C5 paid half a million quid for Big Brother.

Appalling ratings.

Quite honestly Big Brother needs to be on a better channel.

BB might be doing well for C5 usual performance, but Big Brother as a show in the UK is a shadow of it's former self if watched less than a million people.

It's become a small niche show followed by a tiny minority.

All this shows is how much money C5 has wasted and how tin-pot amateur their management are for not being able to exploit what was a very successful machine.

I am not blinded by the lack of LF. I barely watched it a lot of the time. For example, in BB7 - which was so horrifically sound dipped that I rarely bothered with it, yet still loved that series, for all its flaws.

No, these people are dull. And immature. And exceptionally annoying. People like Faye, Alex, Jay and Louise are just crashingly awful.

The show is so obviously 'storylined' - yet still some are pretending it's proper BB. It's not. But if you're enjoying, fair enough. Some are undeniably being entertained. But this is not proper Big Brother, because there is no live footage.

putting HD before the more basic elements of the show was just madness.

Its not the channel, as I said from the start, and yesterday, its a poor show.

The cast are too much of a muchness , we always have media types and wanabees, but there are usually something else too, to grab as wide an audience as possible, its too focussed on one demographic, thus when they dont watch, which they apparently dont on a saturday, its share and numbers drop like this.

Brian is awful, he was particularly bad on the night it needed to be right, launch night, but even since, hes just not good enough to front a major production, it screams amateurism , and its not good enough.

Aden is an idiot which didnt help, but that interview Friday was the worst in the shows history, and Brian played his part in that, he makes Davina, who I think is poor as an interviewer, look like Paxman, it was the worst TV interview since Harty met Grace Jones, utter trainwreck.

I think the live feed effect is overplayed, the show just isnt very good, even putting taste in cast aside, constant parties and gifts making shopping tasks irrelevant, poor editing that contradicts there own web output, utterly diabolical spin off shows, it all adds up in the end.

They need to rethink strategy, BB has a core fanbase, the problem is it isnt all in a single demographic, alienating part of the fanbase to appeal to a demographic isnt working, they arent getting new viewers, they are just losing previously loyal ones, back to the drawing board for January I think.

Shocking

Not even a run on from the Xfactor has helped

Tonight won't fare well either with Strictly, X-Factor, Spooks, Downton and OWIE all on too.......

The fact that people aren't watching on a Saturday, which was also a poor rating night for C4, is nothing to do with Brian.

CBB rated well and he was at the helm of that too.

But it`s always been story lined....in fact I can still remember the first BBLB shows were they went behind the scenes to explain how the show was put together....and bingo there was a story board for the editor......The LF in the earlier series just filled in the spaces...but the show has always followed some house stories and erased(not shown) others

As for the LF.....it was great for BB2/3/4....the tweeting birds then started to become the stars of the LF....In the latter years the LF was nothing short of dire....That said I still miss the post eviction LF.....and without doubt some of BB greatest moments happened on the LF and were either cut to shreds for the HL or in some cases never shown

Live Feed was great during BB5 too. I should know, I watched most of it. *

*Except when they were sleeping *looks pointedly at Jeff Ford*

I don't see how you can say that, we don't have enough information to tell whether the casting is good or not IMO

Best you can say is the edit makes it look like idea casting, from a personal viewpoint of someone (self confessed LF addict) not watching but simply reading the forum they all sound like interchangeable spare parts to me

I don't feel like I'm missing anything and the only time I felt even a twinge was when banana gate happened

The highlights shows were edited in a certain way but we always knew the truth (or most of it) from either watching the LF directly or reading the assorted threads on here, inc. WHATM. Perfect example being 'jolly, cuddly, middle aged activist Carole' in BB8. H/l only viewers would never have known what a hideous, life sapping crone she was.

This time round it's not like it's ever been before. It's obvious people are actually following the storyline, rather than their spontaneous behaviour being edited into the narrative thread, as was always the case in the past. The number of nomances has been ridiculous.

So did I...Well in the evenings....and I was going to include BB5 but the tweeting birds started to do my head in as that series was so action packed the birds just frustrated me.....Fight night and Jason carrying Vanessa across the garden for a snog...and the HMs watching like peeping Toms were classic LF BB moments.

Absolutely. Look at housemates in series gone by who were nothing like they were shown to be on the highlights. The whole point is, we can't know these people because we're seeing so little of them, and that small bit we're seeing is edited in a highly subjective manner.

Hence the evictees leaving and being baffled at how they've been portrayed. I dread to think what kind of stuff they've covered up perpetrated by Jay

No-one enjoys watching their favourite reality show failing, but we saw it coming, the producers chose not to listen to the hard core fans and decided the 'casual' viewer would make the show a success.... so for me it's a case of " We told you so"

But how do you get them to watch???

There is no longer any buzz in the media about BB; even dessie's papers hardly mention it.

It's only up against Spooks and Downton though... and to be honest, I doubt the majority who watch Big Brother are fans of those shows... I am however.

No I know... but I've seen so many former die hards all...

with glee whenever Big Brother is doing terribly.

Exactly. How do we? We can't, because the media is obsessed with The X Factor and anything to do with Simon Cowell.

I`ll give you that one....I did have a rather unflattering nick name for Carol...but fook me I`v forgotten it....and I do appreciate that the continuity of the edit has been poor...In fact I was a very harsh critic of the edit in CBB...I suppose I`v just become accustomed too it....and unlike yourself because I`v enjoyed this series the lack of continuity has been less of an issue for me.

In fact the edit annoyed me so much in CBB I did`t watch the episodes I`d sky+....However because I`v enjoyed BB12 I`v watched all the shows I`v missed.

Anyway I think we`ll have to agree to disagree on this one