Before last night's Celebrity Big Brother had even finished airing on Channel 5 today's Daily Star had gone to the printers with a claim that the launch was "record" breaking (it is of course no coincidence that the Daily Star is also owned by Channel 5 proprietor Richard Desmond):
But exactly which "record" was broken? According to overnight viewing figures Celebrity Big Brother's debut on Channel 5 drew an impressive 5.1m viewers. That puts it fourth on Channel 5's all time list of most-watched broadcasts. Impressive, but it isn't a record.
At 5.1 million it is also considerably lower than the 7.2 million viewers who tuned in for the launch of Celebrity Big Brother in 2002. So it wasn't the Celebrity Big Brother record either.
In fact, Channel 5's launch was only the seventh most-watched launch episode of Celebrity Big Brother:
So which record exactly did Celebrity Big Brother break?
Well, according to Media Week, it was Channel 5's "biggest broadcast outside sport and films".
Again, it's impressive but it's hard to imagine that's what Richard Desmond was hoping for when the order was given to run that 'record breaking' claim across the top of today's Daily Star.
However, while it may not have been the biggest it was the best, according to the Daily Star Sunday's showbiz reporter:
Well I'm convinced.
There I was thinking it was the first show to feature a jizzing dog...
Posted by: James Whatley | Aug 19, 2011 at 15:13