I think this is the first CBB I'm going to skip.

Being famous has long gone as the criteria for being on reality shows.
Let's be honest, one of the biggest was won last year by a virtual unknown. Vicky who ?
The fodder used to be unknown Hollyoaks actors, now it's unknown reality tv stars.

As has been proved before though, you don't need big stars to get viewers.

Good old Biggins. He always turns up if the cheque is right

I think on paper it doesn't look like a great cast, but as always it's always the unknowns who do best. The more famous are usually so boring. I remember the likes of Vinnie Jones, "oh yes, it's him!" but he was the most boring to ever grace our screens

💤💤💤💤 Same point made every year.

Just because you didn't know Vicky, it didn't make her a virtual unknown.

CBB: 2.24m (12.9%) exc. +1

Excluding +1:

Hollyoaks (E4): 0.57m (3.4%)
Coach Trip: Road to Ibiza (E4): 0.30m (1.7%)
Don't Tell the Bride (Sky 1): 0.27m (1.4%)
American Pickers (Dave): 0.16m (0.9%)
Chicago Fire (Sky Living): 0.13m (0.7%)

Not bad at all especially as last summer launched with 2.22m including +1 and this looks to be around 2.4m.

Time for the annual debate about whether Channel 5 should just do Celebrity Big Brother?

Exactly. Most people on the RPG were negative on its chances and predicting it would come in the wrong side of the 2m mark, so a slight increase on last summer's launch has to be good news.

It's never going to do as well as the January one but at the same time I can see why it's there.

From rzt.

Hugh's War On Waste: 3.58m (18.2%)
The Investigator: A British Crime story: 2.46m (12.5%)
inc +1
Celebrity Big Brother: 2.36m (13.6%) inc +1

BBC1
EastEnders: 5.41m (29.7%)
Celebrity MasterChef: 4.65m (23.9%)
BBC News (10pm): 3.82m (23.2%)

BBC2
Full Steam Ahead: 2.05m (10.5%)
Great American Railroad Journeys (Repeat): 1.35m (7.7%)
The Refugee Camp: Our Desert Home: 0.83m (4.2%)

BBC4
Top of the Pops 1982 (7.30pm) (Repeat): 0.35m (2.0%)
Roger Bannister: Everest on the Track: 0.33m (1.7%)
Masters of the Pacific Coast: the Tribes of the American Northwest (Repeat): 0.30m (1.6%)

C4 (exc +1)
999: What's Your Emergency?: 1.42m (7.2%)
Inside Out Homes: 0.83m (4.2%)
Ramsay's Hotel Hell: 0.75m (5.0%)

C5 (exc +1)
Celebrity Big Brother: Live Launch: 2.24m (12.9%)
On Benefits: Life on the Dole: 0.93m (4.8%)
Secrets of Underground Britain (Repeat): 0.54m (3.0%)

I thought CBB would be under 2m so that's not a bad start.

http://www.itv.com/presscentre/press...old-feet-promo

Cold Feet promo

Its quite in incredible how Celeb Masterchef can continue to do so well. They can get some of the most usless celebs on the programme, but still it rates well. Food shows NEVER fail to rate well for the BBC.

Good for CBB. Biggins should be fun.

As much as I enjoy CBB, I usually record because it always feels like Ch5 have more adverts than content. I know that not the case, but it seems to be an ad break after each 'celeb' has gone into the house.

That's a good rating for CBB considering the competition. Took viewers from The Refugee Camp. Hugh's War On Waste did better than people expected too.

Thanks Ray.

Has Full Steam Ahead gone up? Channel 5 a respectable third at 9pm.

Cheers. CBB launched well and the combination of that and losing the Corrie lead-in led to a dip for The Investigator. Don't think that is enough for a renewal.

Hugh's War on Waste predictably did far better than it deserved to. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is the king of pointless television and this was no exception.

Awful for Eastenders.

Thanks. That beats the last two summer launches which surprises me. I guess coming off the back of a better received normal version helped compared to the last two that came after two poor normal series.

Yes! Last week: 1.86m (9.8%)

The summer runs always struggle to find decent celebrities. In it's prime, Celebrity Big Brother aired AT THE MOST once a year (series 1, 2 and 3 were all 2 years apart) and featured no more than ten housemates.

Nowadays there are two series' a year and each one has up to sixteen housemates, so you are looking at 20+ people to sign up every year.

Also, the summer runs are going to have the lesser names because of the smaller viewing figures. If you are Katie Hopkins, Katie Price etc, you are going to go for the series which has 3m+ viewers, rather than the one that you hope is watched by 2m viewers - it's better exposure and more column inches.

To be honest, it's rarely the big names that make the show entertaining. They want to keep their head down and leave with the cheque and their dignity intact. It's the desperados who want the exposure and that create the drama in order to be remembered.

From ITV Media:

Thursday Top 10 (inc +1)

1 BBC One - 07:30 PM EastEnders 5.412m 30%
2 ITV - 07:00 PM Emmerdale 5.220m 31%
3 BBC One - 06:30 PM Regional News and Weather 5.125m 32%
4 ITV - 08:00 PM Emmerdale 5.080m 26%
5 BBC One - 08:00 PM Celebrity MasterChef 4.652m 24%
6 BBC One - 06:00 PM BBC News at Six 4.398m 30%
7 BBC One - 10:00 PM BBC News at Ten 3.822m 23%
8 BBC One - 09:00 PM Hugh's War on Waste: The Battle Continues 3.580m 18%
9 BBC One - 07:00 PM The One Show 3.228m 19%
10 ITV - 06:00 PM ITV Regional News 3.127m 21%

Thursday Top 10 (inc +1) (not including the five main channels)

1 ITV3 - 08:00 PM Endeavour 914k 4.7%
2 E4 - 07:00 PM Hollyoaks 652k 3.8%
3 ITV2 - 09:00 PM The Bourne Identity 605k 3.7%
4 E4 - 08:30 PM The Big Bang Theory 502k 2.6%
5 Drama - 09:00 PM Death in Paradise 446k 2.4%
6 E4 - 08:00 PM The Big Bang Theory 412k 2.1%
7 E4 - 06:30 PM The Big Bang Theory 398k 2.5%
8 E4 - 07:30 PM Coach Trip: Road to Ibiza 395k 2.2%
9 BBC Four - 07:30 PM Top of the Pops: 1982 355k 2.0%
10 CBeebies - 06:20 PM CBeebies Bedtime Hour 352k 2.3%

Yet it was still the top rated programme of the day, and the top rated soap of the day.

Thanks Ray.

Endeavour showing why its worth keeping this series going.