Big Brother 23 ratings: Taking a look at the numbers

The Big Brother 23 ratings took a small hit during the Summer 2021 season, even though millions of viewers were still tuning in.

On average, around five million total viewers were watching each of the 37 episodes that aired for Big Brother 23.

Those numbers take into account the people who were watching the show live as well as those Big Brother fans who were watching the episode through a DVR within a week after the original air date.

Having roughly five million viewers for each episode during the summer is still really good, even if the numbers did take a hit when compared to previous seasons.

Big Brother 23 ratings compared to Big Brother 22 ratings

During Summer 2021, the Big Brother 22 ratings revealed a downturn from the previous season. Around four million people were watching the episode live and a little over five million people total were watching each episode.

According to the specific numbers, on Wednesdays, “CBS averaged a 1.07 rating in the 18-49 demographic and 4.08 million viewers. The Thursday editions averaged a 1.01 in the demo with 4.00 million viewers. The Sunday editions averaged a 0.96 in the demo with 3.83 million viewers.”

Counted within those Sunday numbers were episodes that aired on Monday nights later in the season when CBS decided to move the reality competition show away from a football evening.

As for the Big Brother 23 ratings, Wednesdays yielded a 0.90 rating and 3.76 million viewers, Thursdays had a 0.88 rating and 3.78 million viewers, and Sundays had a 0.89 rating and 3.70 million viewers.

Examining the Big Brother 23 ratings a bit further

Despite a slight drop in the ratings for the weekly episodes, Big Brother 23 was still doing well in its time slots compared to other shows airing during the summer months.

The numbers above also don’t count streaming viewership, which is something that CBS likely takes into account when crunching the numbers internally. The streaming numbers likely give the show another boost in the eyes of advertisers.

With millions of viewers still tuning in every week to find out what’s up with the Big Brother houseguests, the show might be able to continue airing for years. Keeping the costs down by having a singular filming location helps, as does the lack of salaries for actors and actresses.

Host Julie Chen Moonves still gets a nice salary, but the overall costs are low compared to a full-order of episodes for a drama or sitcom.

By increasing the prize levels for the Big Brother 23 winner, as well as for America’s Favorite Houseguest, it looks like the show is still doing very well when it comes to measuring the bottom line. That bodes well for the show to continue airing many more seasons.

Host Julie Chen Moonves already announced that Big Brother 24 will air next summer and that applications are open for hopeful houseguests to apply. Before the BB24 cast gets started, we will also be getting a new season of Celebrity Big Brother that should start in February 2022.

Celebrity Big Brother airs on CBS in Winter 2022

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