TV Ratings: ‘Big Brother’ Dips With Season 20 Premiere, Still Tops Wednesday

By Joe Otterson

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – The Season 20 premiere of “Big Brother” easily topped all of its broadcast competition on Wednesday night.

The long-running CBS reality competition series averaged a 1.5 rating in adults 18-49 and 5.3 million viewers in its two-hour premiere. The show was down just over 10% in both measures from last season’s premiere, but was still one of only two shows to do better than a 1.0 in the key demo for the night.

Later on , “Code Black” (0.8, 5.7 million) ticked up in the demo.

Fox aired a steady episode of “MasterChef” (1.0, 3.7 million) followed by “Gordon Ramsay’s 24 Hours to Hell and Back” (1.1,3.5 million), which was up in the demo.

NBC aired repeats except for “Reverie” (0.3, 1.8 million), which was down in the demo.

ABC and The CW aired only repeats.

CBS won the night with a 1.3 and 5.4 million viewers. Fox was second with a 1.0 and 3.6 million. NBC and ABC tied for third in the demo with a 0.6 each. NBC was third in viewers with 2.9 million while ABC was fourth with 2.4 million. The CW averaged a 0.2 and 1 million viewers.