Only final nights of previous Big Brother series have brought in more advertising for Channel 4 than last Friday. The evening's schedule was promoted as 'Black Friday' to tie into the themes of mourning the last episode of Friends and the start of the fifth series of Big Brother, billed as 'Big Brother Gets Evil'.
Friends attracted an average audience of 8.6m, which peaked at 8.9m and took a 36% audience share. Among all 16- to 34-year-olds, it had a 62.7% share, with a 41.5% share of all ABC1s. It is estimated that a further 1.2m people recorded the show to watch it later. Firms are believed to have paid £100,000 for a 30-second ad slot, 70% more than for a normal Friends episode.
Boosted by the preceding final Friends, Big Brother drew the biggest audience for an opening night, with an average of 6.7m, peaking at 7.2m, with a 37.4% share of audience.
Media analysis, page 19.
_1.jpg)
.jpg)
