The Voice was exactly the same though this year. When it came to Will.i.am's final choice they had 2 singers left, carefully selected by producers. It was obvious the penultimate singer was not going to go through because otherwise what would be the point of the last one performing? Producers are making entertainment programmes. Morality doesn't come into it. They are responsible for entertaining the masses so they have to get it right. It's all theatrical, staged nonsense at the end of the day, a bit like a magician. The public don't know how things work behind the scenes so therefore, as long as something is produced that people enjoy, does it really matter?

I see you completely ignored my previous post directly to you. I knew you would and some things never change on this thread. The winner or BGT is nowhere near as predictable as you!

So BGT did not go under 10m excluding +1. The rating is great and the share is fantastic. I can't believe people on here were predicting 8m.

Sad for BB, but not quite surprised. The rating isn't absolutely awful, the show has done worse on a Saturday night.

I reckon (and it is early days), but this series will average similar to BB12-BB13's 1.6m official. I very much doubt it will do as well as BB14.

I guess the only positive is that half of BB12 Saturdays did worse.

More data needed. Obviously if the whole series were to be down this much from here on in then it's not looking good for BB but if it is going to crash I'd rather it be this year with the contract up for renewal as it puts C5 in a very strong position when it comes to renegotiating.

Thanks, not shabby numbers at all for the football, still a good 5 million watching a midnight. The News rating at 01:00 is probably higher than the majority of their daytime line-up on Saturday too!

What was C5's overall share last night though? If that is established, BB's audience probably isn't that bad in the end. With an England match and inadvertent entertainment from Adrian Chiles looking bored and scratching his nipples, it made for must see telly that probably resulted in those watching ITV to stick with it. There is likely to be no "must see" attitude towards BB at this early stage.

I think everything was going to struggle last night. BGT mopped up half of all viewers and followed by the last England friendly before the World Cup was always going to be tough competition.

Every so often throughout the year BBC1 and ITV have such a strong night that all other broadcasters will struggle.

That's awful. After the huge success of CBB in January people don't seem to have stuck around for the civilian version.

Not a chance. XF is on a slow downward spiral. He may stop the trend but their glory years are long gone.

It's actually worse....the first Saturday (Day 5) was 1.23.

That sub one million average for the serious looms closer.

Well you can console yourself by watching Italy put up a brave fight when they lose to England.

It's certain to say that BB was above the C5 share so I guess that is comforting. And I actually agree, with last year, the ratings went up from W2 to W6 continuously, so it could be the same.

It won't average sub 1m, especially not officially. It will be similar to the BB12-BB13.

Woah! Steady on old chap! Those words may come back to haunt you this time next week!

The one you've been predicting for the past three years unsuccessfully or--?

If BB tanks this year, I can see C5 wanting to do CBB only going forwards. Endemol won't like it but when presented with strong ratings evidence, they might have to accept defeat.

But it's early days yet. It's predictable that people on here want to write its obituary on day 3.

How much data do you need?

Yesterday despite being a launch night on Friday you stated the 1.64 merely reflected a normal drop off as last year launch 2 was innovative. If it was the normal drop off then last night should have been around 1.3m....but instead it was 0.952k not even a million.

Renegotiate what? It is clear it's the spin offs into other areas of Desmond's empire that benefit from BB/CBB.

What were the actual figures and on what day was that broadcast, if it was midweek then people were possibly still at work at the start or had gone to the pub from work. This is the world cup which is bigger than the euros, and at 11pm though quite a few may be in bars, many will likely watch it at home due to it being on late.

Also in terms of match average, the build up is only 40mins and has no real opposition and post match analysis is just over 30 minutes finishing at 1.30 so it won't get dragged down too much at the end. 15m is very realistic I would have thought

Hi DMN

You said last week you may be able to get some consolidated ratings for last Saturday, if you can its the greyhound racing from 7.00pm till 9.30pm on Sky Sport 1 last Saturday and a peak if you could as well please. There was also a programme on after called The Westmead Story but that's not so important. Many thanks!

Big Brother is fine, it'll bounce back tonight as it's a Sunday so we should see it back in the mid 1s again. It could be doing a lot better than that, but the demos are very good for Channel 5 and it fills up loads of hours in the schedule. I can only see Channel 5 dropping Big Brother if it starts rating sub 1m on a regular basis.

Think you'll find I predicted sub million programmes, which proved correct. The only prediction I have made regarding a series average was sub 2m.

The only 1m prediction I recall was to do with it's core audience which C5 have managed to slash from 2.5m because thy only seem interested in junkies with an addiction problem for BB.

Big Brother had a lot of things against it last night - not only was it on at a weird time compared to normal, it was against an England match for the World Cup (or something. I couldn't give a monkey's ball sack about football) and it was the dreaded Saturday rating, traditionally much poorer than usual ratings wise, even in the C4 days (which I notice it beat last night anyway.) fingers crossed is all I can say - it's got the potential to be an excellent series. Hopefully should be back above a million tonight.

So you predict it will bounce back to 1.4 - 1.5m tonight, interesting.

Indeed. Once you take into consideration the audience share for C5, things really aren't as dire as some might suggest. If BB was on BBC1 or ITV and had 900K then it would be disastrous, but it isn't. It is serving the audience who want to watch it well and is keeping C5's overall share at an acceptable level.

Wow what a rating for BGT, way more than I would have predicted - given some of the crap in the final.

Poor for BB, doesn't bode well - giving someone a free pass to the final at such an early stage was ludicrous.

I agree it had a lot going against it. BGMT scored 523k at 9.30 and the England game. Saturday's are a traditionally bad day for BB ratings anyway. I'm a massive fan but it's a programme (apart from evictions) that can be recorded and watched later, the England game not so much.

One highlight show in, on it's weakest day, and it's already being written off.