Celebrity Big Brother goes out on whimper with 3.5m viewers as Ulrika wins

by Darren Davidson, Brand Republic 26-Jan-09, 08:00

LONDON - 'Celebrity Big Brother' pulled in a lowly 3.5m viewers for Friday's live final, 2m fewer viewers than the last final, as Ulrika Jonsson was the surprise winner.

Ulrika Jonsson was crowned this year's winner of 'Celebrity Big Brother 6', with 56.7% of the total votes for the final two places. Terry Christian was the runner up with 43.3% of the total votes.

Around 3.5m saw Jonsson, who started life as a weather girl before presenting a string of programmes and having a much publicised affair with former England manager Sven Goran Eriksson, crowned this year's surprise winner between 10pm-11.05pm.

More than 5m viewers watched the past five finals, with Chantelle Houghton's victory in 2006 seen by 6.8m.

Jonsson was reportedly paid £175,000 for the three-week show, more than any of the other contestants who included rapper Coolio, who came third, and Vern Troyer who came fourth.

According to The Sun, Channel 4 is now considering the future of the format.

On the same evening, the pre-publicity surrounding Jonathan Ross' return to his Friday night chat show following a three-month suspension boosted the audience to 5m viewers, from an average of 3.9m viewers before the series was taken off the air.

At its peak, 5.1m people saw Ross interview Hollywood actor Tom Cruise about his new film 'Valkyrie' on 'Friday Night with Jonathan Ross between 10.35pm-11.35pm.

Ross's last chat show in October before his suspension was watched by 3.74m viewers.

Ross resumed hosting his BBC One chat show on Friday with the words: "So, where were we?" and apologised again for the incident.

Ross said: "Welcome to our millions of regular viewers and to our several thousand new viewers who I suspect may be watching for the very first time."

Comments

Keith Geddes - 26/01/2009

Even Ulrika is supposed to have been surprised and said fix.. well.. its aimed at kids, the producers want fights to keep it appealing, I cant watch it.. a bunch of people talking about WHAT? Themselves? Crying.. they all act it up.. PLEASE.. no more... night coverage of people sleeping in bed... OH, YAWN... the COST of putting it on.. dead air.