Celebrity Big Brother 3 premiere ratings: How did it fare on CBS?

Celebrity Big Brother

Following last night’s big premiere, what sort of numbers did Celebrity Big Brother 3 do for CBS?

Entering the episode, we’ll make it clear what our #1 concern was: The celebrities themselves. The general consensus about the cast entering the premiere was simply that they weren’t famous enough for the show to draw new viewers. The biggest star is arguably Lamar Odom, and to date, the show has focused more on his past marriage to Khloe Kardashian than anything that he actually did in his NBA career.

Let’s get into the numbers now: The premiere generated a 0.7 rating in the 18-49 demographic, just slightly ahead of the 0.6 rating for The Amazing Race. When you look at total viewers, the Julie Chen Moonves-hosted show drew 3.7 million people, which is close to the average from Big Brother 23. It is down, however, in the demo versus BB23 on average, and also down dramatically from the numbers that Celebrity Big Brother drew the last time it was on back in 2019.

It’s hard, in the end, to compare anything the celebrity version does now to what it was three seasons ago, especially since the TV landscape continues to rapidly change with more and more people stepping away from watching live television. In general, we think the real success of this series will be based on how many people subscribe to Paramount+ for the live feeds. Unfortunately, we’ve heard already that the feeds have been delayed until Friday. We’ll get more into that soon, but there are a number of different things to think about as a potential reason.

There is a new episode of Celebrity Big Brother tonight on CBS and through that, you’ll have a chance to learn more about the first set of nominations and an initial “Gala Gift” twist within the house.

What do you think about the ratings for the Celebrity Big Brother 3 premiere?

Be sure to share right now in the comments! Once you do that, stay at the site for more coverage of the series throughout the season. There’s a ton of other good stuff ahead. (Photo: CBS.)

Love TV? Be sure to like Matt & Jess on Facebook for more updates!