Big Brother final audience down by a quarter to 1.5 million

By Maisie McCabe, brandrepublic.com, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 11:14AM

Transsexual Luke Anderson's victory in the latest series of 'Big Brother' helped the show bow out with 1.5 million viewers last night, a quarter less than tuned in to the final of last year's series.

Big Brother winner Luke Anderson hugs a fellow contestant

According to unofficial overnight figures, ‘Big Brother: The Final’ got an average audience of 1.48 million on Channel 5 and Channel 5 HD between 9pm and 10.30pm last night, a 6.6% share.

An additional average of 51, 516 viewers watched the final of the Schwarzkopf-sponsored show an hour later on Channel 5 +1.

The final of last year’s ‘civilian’ series of ‘Big Brother’ had an overnight audience of 2.05 million viewers on 11 November, while the final of the celebrity version was watched by 3.03 million viewers in January.

According to figures supplied by Channel 5, an average audience of 1.6 million viewers watched this series of ‘Big Brother’, slightly below last year’s average of 1.7 million but a decent performance for Channel 5 against the Olympics.

The current series is being investigated by Ofcom after complaints about bullying and racism. An Ofcom spokesman said the investigation was ongoing.

Elsewhere last night the most watched channel at 9pm was BBC One.

‘EastEnders’ had an average of 6.72 million viewers between 9pm and 9.30pm, while ‘Mrs Brown’s Boys’ was watched by 4.85 million between 9.30pm and 10pm.

This article was first published on brandrepublic.com