Ratings Focus

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The sun's shining but BB's ratings aren't.

The sun is out, the two main terrestrial channels have cleared their schedules for a football tournament and Big Brother is underway on Channel 4. Summer must be here.

After just six outings of C4's ninth series of the reality show, Big Brother has gained an average total audience (including viewers of C4+1) of 3.9 million/19.2% share. The vast majority of viewers have watched the show on C4, when it has usually aired at 9pm with an average audience of 3.7 million/17.6%. A further 239,000/1.6% preferred to watch the show on the timeshifted C4+1. Over the equivalent number of shows for last year's series, Big Brother averaged slightly more, with 4.2 million/20%, although start times varied from this year.

The launch night of the Endemol-owned Brighter Pictures show on 5 June averaged 5.2 million/24.2% at 9pm on C4, with a further 142,000/0.9% watching on C4+1. The overall audience for the launch was down by 800,000 viewers compared with the start of last year's show on 30 May when 6.2 million/25.3% watched in a similar 9pm slot.

Over the years, viewers aged between 16 and 34 - the show's target audience - have been steadily declining. In 2002 that age group made up 45.7% of the third series total audience. By last year this had declined to just under 37%. So far this year, viewers in that age group have made up 36% of the audience.

ABC1 viewers have been more loyal. So far 41.3% of this year's audience has come from the upmarket demographic. In 2002 they accounted for 43.2%.

As with past years, after the initial surge in interest in the launch show audiences have tailed off. The most recent edition of the show on Tuesday 10 June attracted 3.5 million/16.6% in a 10pm slot with 167,000/0.93% watching on C4+1.

The slightly below-par start has been mirrored by the summer's other big TV event - Euro 2008 - which has failed to draw huge figures with none of the home nations being represented.

The entire coverage of the opener, Switzerland vs the Czech Republic, on Saturday 7 June on BBC1 averaged 3.5 million/27.3% from 4.30pm. ITV1's coverage of Portugal's tie against Turkey on the same day didn't do much better between 7.15pm and 10pm when 4 million/20.6% watched. The equivalent games in the previous European tournament picked up 5.6 million/41.9% and 6.2 million/33.5% in similar slots on 12 June 2004.

But there are early signs that interest in Euro 2008 is picking up. ITV1's live coverage of the Netherlands' 3-0 defeat of Italy on Monday 9 June was seen by 5.6 million/27.2% between 7.30pm and 10pm with the match itself watched by 6.2 million/30.1% from 7.45pm.

While audiences for Euro 2008 are expected to build, no match is likely to attain the 19.2 million/70.7% that saw England get knocked out by Portugal on 24 June 2004.