Day 16: Channel 5 defend Big Brother: Power Trip ratings

The controller of Channel 5 has defended the ratings of the most recent series of Big Brother – which officially rated as the least watched series ever

Ben Frow leaped to defend the reality format, saying that he doesn’t want Big Brother to be the “number one programme”. Big Brother’s latest series officially averaged at 1.57 Milllion viewers – making it the least watched series of civilian Big Brother to date. This record was previously held by Big Brother 12 and 13 which aired in 2011 and 2012.

However, in defense of the low ratings, Frow mentioned that the show was up against big sporting events – the FIFA World Cup and the Commonwealth Games. Big Brother was previously up against the London 2012 Olympic games during the thirteenth series of the show.

While at the Edinburgh International Television Festival, he commented: “We knew this summer was gonna be tough, we were up against all that sport, it’s actually done remarkably well I think.

“When I looked at our ratings report for, I think it was last week or the week before, Big Brother was the fourth most popular programme. That’s how I want it. I don’t want Big Brother to be number one.”

“I always said Big Brother is a very important piece for us, and I love Big Brother – you can play it in various different ways. But if you are overreliant on Big Brother, when it does fall down – and one day it will decline further – the whole lot falls down around it.

“I want to have shows I can play throughout the year that do as well, if not better than Big Brother, and those are the shows we’re creating at the moment, like Benefits Britain.”

Frow also confirmed that he is expecting the show to return to Channel 5 in 2015 – however Channel 5 are yet to officially announce a renewal on the contract which ends after the current series of Celebrity Big Brother.

Thanks to bbspy for the quotes.