Big Brother 15 launches to an underwhelming 2m on Channel 5
June 7, 2014 by admin
Filed under Lingerie Events
Thursday night saw Channel 5 unveil its latest grand pageant of moral decay as the granddaddy of all gutter-scrapping reality shows, Big Brother (9pm), got underway.
Much like many of the preceding years, the 15th series of the unstoppable and worryingly exploitive show pretended to have an underlying theme – this year a ‘power trip’ – as if the broadcaster wasn’t serving up the same stale, but financially friendly, schedule clogger.
As usual, this year’s line-up of unlikable lost souls had their highly prepped self-descriptive sound bites at the ready.
2014′s line up of the cocky and deluded housemates included a highly conservative catholic lingerie model, a gobby manufactured Essex clone, and plenty of young simple minded women in their twenties who have expressed an interest in ‘exploring their sexuality’ while coincidentally being broadcast live on national TV.
This is the fourth series of the bog-standard pleb version since Channel 5 acquired the voyeuristic show in 2011, yet somehow the Viacom-owned channel has managed a whopping seven series of the unhinged celebrity version in the same time frame.
Channel 5′s very first Big Brother launched with the 12th series in September 2011 and brought in 2.6 million viewers, however this figure had fallen to 2 million viewers for the opening episode in June of last year.
Last night’s hour and half introduction to the new faces of this summer’s tabloids saw excitable host Emma Willis usher hopefuls into the compound of desperation and was watched by 2 million viewers and a 10% share.
While 2014′s big launch didn’t break any records, it did create enough buzz to beat Channel 4, which is really as high as the show can aim.
The former home of the reality show, Channel 4 decided to counteract all the screaming with an overwhelming line-up of all those stand-up comedians you can see on TV every night anyway, scattered across electronic channel guides in all those unavoidable panel shows.
In fairness, Channel 4′s Comedy Gala (9pm) was masquerading under the ‘sick tots charity’ banner but that probably didn’t make the sight of James Corden doing his routine any easier to digest. An audience of 1.6 million viewers tuned in to see every comedian to appear on The One Show, ever, all under one roof.
While this didn’t provide Channel 4 with the power to beat its prodigal offspring, it did garner a 10% share and the channel’s biggest hit of the day.
Meanwhile, BBC One was airing some old fashioned scripted drama as the third and final part of From Here to There (9pm) recovered slightly from last week’s football-affected disaster. After seeing a shocking week on week fall of -47% (it couldn’t compete with a murder attempt on a late edition of Coronation Street) the final episode saw the audience grow to a healthier level.
The tale of a man who begins leading a double life after a near death experience in Manchester debuted with 4.5 million viewers but plummeted to 2.4 million by the second week. Last night the drama, starring Philip Glenister, brought in 3.2 million viewers as old family secrets were revealed and the antagonist’s betrayal was exposed, netting a 15% share and the biggest 9pm audience.
On ITV, it was time to celebrate the life of Ryan Giggs as a one-off documentary gained access to his short lived tenure as Manchester United’s new manager. 1.7 million viewers tuned in to see an hour of a finely focused PR exercise and liberal backslapping on Life of Ryan: Caretaker Manager, resulting in an 8% share.
In the 8pm slot, Food Inspectors bagged 2.3 million viewers for BBC One, while BBC Two’s Springwatch 2014 took in 2.1 million viewers. Over on Channel 4, a new series of George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces (8pm) saw a couple build a hobbit hole in their back garden, without actually using the term hobbit at all, due to obvious copyright issues, bagging 1.3 million viewers.
Emmerdale (ITV) kicked off a double bill at 7pm with 5.4 million viewers, while the second episode at 8pm secured 5.7 million. Thursday’s visit to EastEnders at 7:30pm brought in BBC One’s biggest audience of the day, with 6 million viewers tuning in.
As usual, Coronation Street piped past its rivals to win the day’s top spot. A lower than usual audience of 6.8 million viewers watched as Peter Barlow’s day went from bad to worse as the stress of murder plots and suspicions took its toll on Carla, resulting in an audience share of 32%.
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