‘Big Brother 19’ is Highest-Rated ‘Big Brother’ Season in Three Years

When you feel personally responsible for this season’s big ratings…

As much as viewers may be complaining about the stagnant and dull game-play of Big Brother 19, CBS is probably very happy with it. This season, the show is seeing a surge in ratings, outperforming the last two years and dominating the summer. Not since “Big Brother 16” has CBS seen this high of ratings!

As of now, we’ve had seven weeks of the show, which means seven episodes for each of the three nights. To get a picture of the ratings, here’s how ‘Big Brother 19’ is doing compared to the last three summer seasons, based on the first seven weeks of the show.

AVERAGE TOTAL VIEWERS PER EPISODE
BB19: 6.1 million

BB18: 5.81 million

BB17: 6.04 million

BB16: 6.22 million

WEDNESDAY EPISODE AVERAGE
BB19: 6.28 million
BB18: 5.95 million

BB17: 6.11 million
BB16: 6.32 million

THURSDAY EPISODE AVERAGE
BB19: 6.03 million
BB18: 5.93 million
BB17: 6.1 million
BB16: 6.13 million

SUNDAY EPISODE AVERAGE
BB19: 6.07 million
BB18: 5.6 million
BB17: 5.93 million
BB16: 6.22 million

As you can see, ‘Big Brother 19’ is beating last year by an average of 300,000 viewers per episode and it’s slightly ahead of Season 17. It’s also beating out last year’s average for every single night, with the Sunday episodes improving on last year by nearly half a million viewers. (Apparently viewers prefer the Den of Temptation to the Road Kill. Go figure.)

The only category where “Big Brother 19” is not beating the past two years’ ratings is the Thursday night shows, where the ratings are slightly lower than those of Season 17. But to be fair, Season 17 did have a lot of very big personalities going home in the early weeks like Da’Vonne, Audrey and Jason. Those live eviction episodes were more exciting than the predictability of Cody, Ramses and the Halting Hex.

Obviously the ratings still aren’t up to Season 16’s levels, but this year is definitely the closest, with the Wednesday night episodes almost tying those from “Big Brother 16.” After several years of slowly and steadily declining ratings, this boost is definitely good news for the franchise.

(Host Julie Chen may not be thrilled that the show continues to have high ratings, though!)

Maybe it’s the fights and romantic drama that has helped this season go up in the ratings. Or maybe there’s been less competition so far. This year, every single episode of “Big Brother 19” has won its time slot in the ratings, while last year it had come in second three times so far.

“Big Brother 19” has been the most-watched show of the night for 21 out of 22 episodes so far, with its only loss coming against a pre-season NFL game. Meanwhile, during the first seven weeks, “Big Brother 18” failed to be the most-watched show of the night eight times and in Season 17, it wasn’t the top show seven times.

Whatever the reason, numbers seem to dictate trends. And with “Big Brother 19” getting strong ratings, perhaps this means we’ll be seeing more returning players, more temptations and more showmances in future seasons?

For more in-depth “Big Brother 19” coverage, head over to Buddy TV!

To read our recaps of “Big Brother 19” click here!

(Photo: CBS)

3 Responses


  1. I don’t understand why Christmas was allowed to use the ring of replacement without actually replacing anyone. She pulled cody off but could not replace him do to her injury. If all of the other hgs had to follow the rules for each temptation, why was she allowed special priviledges? I kinda feel like she shouldn’t even be there if she can’t compete physically. And I don’t think it was fair to cody,given the stakes at hand.


  2. We are truly living in the End of Times. With all of the other garbage being thrown at us it seems like folks would watch something else. Thanks, mouth-breathers.


  3. To me.. the only reason why is, to see if anyone got they’re head outta there A$$ and finally vote Paul out!! It’s a Sh*t Show this year! #TeamCody All the wayyyyy !!!!

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