Channel 5 recieved their third highest ratings last night following the brodacast of the launch of Celebrity Big Brother.
A celebrity version of the former Channel 4 vehicle got proceedings underway for the Richard Desmond-owned broadcaster, with names including Kerry Katona, Sally Bercow and Jedward entering the famous Elstree residence.
The Launch was watched by a adverage of 5.16 million viewers between 9pm and 10:30pm. The Show apparently peaked at 7million viewers.
The Show beat the launches of Big Brother 10 and Big Brother 11 which aired on Channel 4 with only 4.57m in 2010.
The Biggest audience for Channel 5 is still England's Euro 2000 qualifier against Poland in September 1999.
The slot winning performance saw Big Brother build its audience from 4.49m (18.2%) in the first 15 minutes to 5.59m (26.1%) in the penultimate quarter of an hour of the show. In the final 15 minutes, the audience declined slightly to 4.77m (23.3%) after all the celebrity contestants had entered the house.
The highest proportion of the show’s viewers (1.12m / 21.8%) were aged between 35 and 44 and just under two thirds (3.34m / 64.9%) were women.
Overall, it was four times C5’s slot average of 1.29m (5.81%) viewers for the year to date.
The main event was followed by Emma Willis-fronted spin-off Celebrity Big Brother’s Bit on the Side, which attracted 1.82m (13.2%) viewers over the hour from 10.30pm. The sideways glance at the night’s activity also trounced C5’s slot average of 803,500 (5.77%) for 2011 so far.