Big Brother 19 premiere ratings solid; Little Big Shots: Forever Young down

The Big Brother 19 premiere ratings are now officially in, and we would say that the numbers turned out ultimately as expected.

The first episode of the season on Wednesday night ended up generating in total a 1.7 rating in the 18-49 demographic, which is down around 10% from the season 18 premiere but easily still enough to dominate for the entire night. This is also a show that tends to stay very consistent throughout the year, so we imagine that these numbers will hold pretty firm over the course of the next several weeks.

Now that we’ve said all of this, it’s almost utterly impossible for the premiere ratings alone to be the sole litmus test for this show’s success. Remember for a moment now that this is also a series that profits considerably from CBS All Access and the sales of the live feeds, which spike considerably over the first few weeks from the season. While there is a cost to doing a show like this, there’s a financial model in place that renders much of that cost irrelevant.

We do not expect to cover the ratings for every Big Brother episode all season long, but you better believe that this is something that we’ll be checking on here and there as we gauge the show’s overall performance over the course of time. It’s already been renewed for a season 20, so there is no worrying there.

As for other ratings news…

MasterChef retained almost all of its 1.0 rating from the week before, which is rather good when you consider the competition. While this show is pretty similar week in and week out, it makes Fox some good money and is fairly simple to produce. It’s not going anywhere in the near future.

Meanwhile, Little Big Shots: Forever Young showed courtesy of its 0.9 that having older contestants can do something in the numbers — though the flagship series is easily still the most popular of the two. (We’re just surprised still thinking about how many different shows / versions of shows there are out there with Steve Harvey. Doesn’t the dude ever sleep?)

What did you watch on Wednesday night? Be sure to share your thoughts on the matter now in the comments!

Meanwhile, be sure to head over here in the event you want to get some other news on this season of Big Brother, including our review of the premiere and a whole lot more. (Photo: CBS.)