#bbuk

ITV has extended this year’s Big Brother UK to eight weeks – up from seven last year, and six the previous two years. For anyone keeping score, that’s still a week shorter than the early Channel 4 series, but slightly longer than the last few Channel 5 ones. The show is back this autumn on ITV2 and ITVX.

ITV’s press release (linked above) claims BBUK has now been streamed over 163 million times on ITVX – they were still saying 150 million as recently as November, so that gives us some idea of how things are going.

The press release also reveals there will be Housemates, a House, evictions, and a winner. Big if true.

There’s not a huge amount of new information for us to share here – we already knew Late & Live had been cancelled, and that the next series of Celebrity Big Brother UK was being “pushed back” and bumped to ITV2.

But TV Zone has confirmed what we already thought: CBBUK is being “rested” during 2026, and is “expected” to return in 2027.

The main, “civilian” series will air on ITV2 in the autumn as usual.

Depending on when BBAU returns, this might mean a quiet few months from us, but rest assured we’ll still be keeping our all-seeing eye on all the latest developments.

There’s more mixed news for the Big Brother UK franchise tonight – just three days after we learned Big Brother: Late & Live had been cancelled.

According to TV Zone, the next series of Celebrity Big Brother has been “pushed back” to the second half of 2026, or possibly even 2027. This is supposedly down to ITV’s “rich reality slate” in early 2026, which includes I’m a Celebrity: South Africa, The Summit, Nobody’s Fool, and The Neighbourhood.

If Big Brother UK keeps its usual slot from late September to mid November – with Love Island wrapping up in late July or early August – there’d only be a roughly seven-week window left to squeeze Celebrity Big Brother into. And even then, it might have to segue almost continuously into the civilian series.

Going forward, Celebrity Big Brother will be also airing on ITV2, not ITV1, “due to the show’s core younger audience”. This part doesn't come as a surprise, after ITV controller Kevin Lygo dropped hints back in August, saying, “We’re thinking not on the main channel, that’s the answer. It’s so difficult now to book big celebrities, famous people, which is what we need on the main channel. Whereas you can go more interesting and niche on ITV2.”

ITV reiterated that it’s committed to “both Celebrity Big Brother and Big Brother beyond 2025” – again highlighting the fact the shows have been streamed over 150 million times on ITVX.

Both the celebrity and civilian versions of Big Brother UK will be returning next year, according to TV Zone – and hosts AJ Odudu and Will Best are expected to remain at the helm. But, if The Sun’s reporting is to be believed, this year’s Late & Live spinoff simply rated too poorly to warrant bringing it back.

According to superTV, midweek BBLL episodes averaged about 250,000 viewers this year, including people who caught up on ITVX. Episodes that aired after evictions fared better – the Friday average was over 400,000, rising to more than 600,000 when the eviction interview was part of the show. “Same-day” figures, which exclude catch-up, were in the low hundreds of thousands – one episode in the show’s final week only attracted 103,000 viewers.

Regardless, its cancellation doesn’t come as much of a surprise: frankly, it just wasn’t very good. Shambolic production and a string of inherently unlovable guests meant even the most hardcore fans on our Bluesky Feed were hate-watching by the end.

Meanwhile, this year’s main show did... fine? Average viewing figures dropped by about 50,000 compared to last year, from 1.1 million to 1.05 million. ITV2 same-day figures were down by about 200,000 compared to 2024 – but ITVX viewing rose by 150,000, almost plugging the gap.

ITV bosses are apparently blaming changing viewing habits – and the BBC’s Celebrity Traitors, whose finale had more than 6 million same-day viewers – for the drop. But then, I guess they wouldn’t say, “It was a historically bad series, maybe the worst in 25 years.” (I would.)

It’s already been pointed out that BBLL’s cancellation might at least make it more difficult for the producers to do backdoor evictions. Silver linings, and all that.

It’s amazing how much our #BBUK Bluesky Feed has grown in the two-and-a-bit years since Big Brother UK was reborn on ITV. During Big Brother 2025’s 48-day run, it got 63,674 views and collected 11,433 posts.

If you’re still on Twitter, and want to hang out somewhere more positive – or even if you’re on Bluesky, but are still searching through the #BBUK tag manually – why not give it a try? It really is the friendliest Big Brother fan community on the internet.

444 of you cast 1,139 votes in our first ever Big Brother UK Popularity Poll – and now, having collated the results from all seven weeks, we can reveal that Zelah was the most popular Housemate of the series! He got an incredible 20.31%, with results weighted to simulate all 17 Housemates having stayed for the full 48 days.

Need a text-based list of the Housemates and their percentages? There’s one below the cut.

Join the #BBUK Bluesky Feed