Big Brother All-Stars ratings are not great out of the gate this summer. Two episodes into the summer 2020 season, CBS is seeing a large dip in viewership when compared to Big Brother 2019.
The initial numbers are in from Sunday night (August 9), revealing an estimated 3.11 million viewers and a mark of 0.8 in the key demographic of ages 18-49.
The Big Brother All-Stars ratings from the season premiere (August 5) turned out an estimated 3.66 million viewers and a 1.0 mark in the key demo.
A deeper look at Big Brother ratings
Using last season as an example, Sunday nights are supposed to be the high-water mark for the show each week. There is less competition and it frequently leads to really good numbers. At least it did before the BB22 cast came along.
To put it in perspective, the worst Sunday night in 2019 still drew more than four million viewers. On average 4.45 million viewers tuned in for the BB19 cast, as opposed to the 3.11 million that saw the first Sunday episode for BB22.
Some might point to the later start time — 10/9c episode on August 9 instead of 8/7c from summer 2019 — as a reason the numbers look so bleak.
In regard to the season premiere numbers of an estimated 3.66 million viewers tuning in, the Big Brother 21 premiere saw an estimated 4.9 million viewers tuned to CBS. That’s also a big downturn.
Fewer television viewers in 2020?
Taking a wider look at the overall ratings, it seems that fewer people are watching the primetime networks right now. Even with lower viewership numbers, CBS still won the night with an episode of Tough as Nails and the two hours of Big Brother 22 on Wednesday night.
CBS also led NBC, FOX, The CW, and ABC on Sunday night, showing that even if the Big Brother ratings are taking a hit, that the network is still going to be able to pull in some key advertising dollars.
It will be very interesting to see if the twisty episode from Sunday night can help draw in more viewers for future weeks. The episode is available OnDemand, through DVRs, and also on the CBS All Access application.
Looking forward, there are a lot of strong players on the BB22 cast, so there could be some big moves coming. When the in-house drama starts building and the live feeds start to get really exciting, the Big Brother ratings might just see an uptick.
Big Brother All-Stars airs Sundays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays at 8/7c on CBS.