The Challenge USA premiere ratings up versus Love Island in 2021

The Challenge USA was a huge gamble for CBS to take, but we understand 100% why they took it. Remember that they’ve been wanting a stronger companion to Big Brother for years, and Love Island was never that big of a ratings hit. (Ironically, there are Love Island contestants who are a part of this Challenge season.)

So did the gamble pay off in the end? To a certain extent, the answer here is yes. The show ended up drawing 2.2 million viewers and also a 0.4 rating in the 18-49 demographic. These are drops from the 3.7 million viewers and the 0.8 rating that Big Brother 24 generated for its premiere, but we think that the network expected that. The Challenge still fared better than Love Island and for that very reason, we tend to think that the network is happy.

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Are they probably still going to want to grow this show further? We do tend to think so for as well as they can promote it. There are plenty of Survivor fans, for example, who may not be aware of it since the two shows are airing at different times. The Big Brother audience is going to be a little bit easier to get, just because so many of these people are already around. (It is certainly also going to draw more viewership on Paramount+ after the fact.)

Personally, we do think The Challenge got off to a solid start, but we do need to see more of the alliance-building over the next few weeks. The cast this time around is pretty solid, but we do wonder if CBS would be able to attract even more names moving forward now that it’s clear that this version of the show is a success.

Related – Be sure to get some more news when it comes to The Challenge right now

What did you think about the premiere of The Challenge USA on CBS last night?

Are you going to watch in the weeks ahead? Be sure to share right now in the attached comments! Once you do just that, come back for all sorts of other updates you don’t want to miss. (Photo: USA.)