I'm a Celebrity returns with almost 9m tuning in

by Daniel Farey-Jones, Brand Republic 14-Nov-06, 11:00

LONDON - The return of 'I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!' to ITV1 last night brought in an average of 8.9m viewers.

The start of the sixth run of the reality TV contest, which this time includes former Busted star Matt Willis and former HearSay singer Myleene Klass, attracted a 38% share of viewing.

ITV1 comfortably beat the season finale of BBC One's 'Spooks', which garnered 6.1m viewers and a 25% share. The hour-and-a-half-long opener also attracted 47% of the much sought after 16- to 34-year-olds.

The ratings for this incarnation of 'I'm a Celebrity' are slightly down on the last two series. The fifth series' opening got 9.4m viewers and a 37.9% share, and the fourth series got 9m viewers and a 35% share.

First the 10 celebrities had to find their camp by kayak and by jumping from a helicopter. Former newsreader Jan Leeming did the first bushtucker trial, retrieving two out of five stars from caves full of creatures such as scorpions and cane toads.

The series is running for the next three weeks and is sponsored by Iceland.

ITV is streaming all ITV1 'I'm a Celebrity' shows live to mobile phones, and all afternoon shows online. It has negotiated an ad deal for these new-media channels with media agency MediaCom, through which T-Mobile, Universal Music, EA Games and Beechams are running video ads.

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