As much as I may complain about the stagnant and dull gameplay of Big Brother 19, CBS is probably very happy with it. After the first seven weeks, the show is seeing a surge in ratings, outperforming the last two years and dominating the summer.
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As of now, we’ve had seven weeks of the show, which means seven episodes for each of the three nights. To get a picture of the ratings, here’s how Big Brother 19 is doing vs. the last three summer seasons based on the first seven weeks of the show.
AVERAGE TOTAL VIEWERS PER EPISODE
BB19: 6.1 million viewers
BB18: 5.81 million viewers
BB17: 6.04 million viewers
BB16: 6.22 million viewers
WEDNESDAY EPISODE AVERAGE
BB19: 6.28 million viewers
BB18: 5.95 million viewers
BB17: 6.11 million viewers
BB16: 6.32 million viewers
THURSDAY EPISODE AVERAGE
BB19: 6.03 million viewers
BB18: 5.93 million viewers
BB17: 6.1 million viewers
BB16: 6.13 million viewers
SUNDAY EPISODE AVERAGE
BB19: 6.07 million viewers
BB18: 5.6 million viewers
BB17: 5.93 million viewers
BB16: 6.22 million viewers
As you can see, Big Brother 19 is beating last year by an average of 300,000 viewers per episode and it’s slightly ahead of season 17. It’s also beating out last year’s average for every single night, with the Sunday episodes improving on last year by nearly half a million viewers. I guess the Den of Temptation is better than the Road Kill.
The only category where Big Brother 19 is not beating the past two years is the Thursday night shows, where the ratings are slightly lower than from season 17. But to be fair, season 17 did have a lot of very big personalities going home in the early weeks like Da’Vonne, Audrey and Jason. Those live eviction episodes were more exciting than the predictability of Cody, Ramses and the Halting Hex.
Obviously the ratings still aren’t up to season 16’s levels, but this year is definitely the closest, with the Wednesday night episodes almost tying those from Big Brother 16. After several years of slowly and steadily declining ratings, this boost is definitely good news for the franchise.
Maybe it’s the fights and romantic drama that has helped this season go up in the ratings. Or maybe there’s been less competition so far. This year, every single episode of Big Brother 19 has won its time slot in the ratings, while last year it had come in second three times so far.
Also, Big Brother 19 has been the most-watched show of the night for 21 out of 22 episodes so far, with its only loss coming against a pre-season NFL game. Meanwhile, during the first seven weeks, Big Brother 18 failed to be the most-watched show of the night eight times and in season 17, it wasn’t the top show seven times.
Whatever the reason, numbers seem to dictate trends. And with Big Brother 19 getting strong ratings, perhaps this means we’ll be seeing more returning players, more temptations and more showmances in future seasons.
(Image courtesy of CBS)
Senior Writer, BuddyTV
John watches nearly every show on TV, but he specializes in sci-fi/fantasy like The Vampire Diaries, Supernatural and True Blood. However, he can also be found writing about everything from Survivor and Glee to One Tree Hill and Smallville.
