Advertisement

Big Brother evicted from Friday and Sunday

The future of reality series Big Brother is in doubt after the Nine Network dumped the show from its line-up on Friday and Sunday nights.

Big Brother was listed to air on Friday at 7.30pm but it has quietly been axed, after the TV guides went to print, and replaced by the 1995 James Bond movie Goldeneye.

The reality show has already been replaced in Sunday night's schedule by the origin of Batman TV series Gotham which launched last Sunday.

The scheduling change is a huge blow to the costly reality series which is not tracking anywhere near as well in the overall TV ratings as it did in 2013.

It's being regularly beaten in its timeslot and its Friday night ratings have been abysmal.

Big Brother has averaged about 450,000 viewers for the past two Friday's and has lost out in the ratings to Better Homes and Gardens, Inspector George Gently and The Living Room.

One of the selling points of this season was the fact Nine was airing Big Brother for an unprecedented six nights a week.

It was going to provide more continuity with storylines, but after launching with more than a million viewers the series has rarely been in the nightly top 10.

There have been criticisms aimed at the cookie-cutter casting of easy-on-the eye housemates and the over-the-top stunts to create drama and tension rather than let it occur organically.

A reduction in episodes per week will make it even harder for the producers to cram in seven days of footage in to about five hours of TV coverage which includes live evictions and nominations.

Nine has been contacted for comment.