Big Brother goes out with a whimper

Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack ended its low profile run on E4 with 644,000 viewers last night, January 28, eclipsed by Ross Kemp's increasingly popular series about British military operations in Afghanistan on Sky One.
The long-running reality show, shunted from Channel 4 to E4 after last year's racism row, captured a 3.1% share of viewing in multichannel homes between 8.30pm and 10.10pm, bringing the series to a subdued close, according to unofficial overnights.
By comparison, the final of Celebrity Big Brother scored 5.8 million viewers for Channel 4 in January 2007.
Last night's Celebrity Hijack live final - won by John Loughton, a 20-year-old politician from Edinburgh - also saw presenter Dermot O'Leary's last appearance on the show.
Celebrity Hijack brought E4 1.69 million viewers, the channel's highest audience to date for a homegrown programme, on its debut on January 3.
The show and its spin-offs, including Big Brother's Little Brother and Big Brother's Big Mouth, have dominated the E4 schedule over the past four weeks, but without the normal blanket tabloid coverage the reality show has had nothing like its usual impact.
Channel 4 decided to rest the format on its main channel after a race row erupted on the last series. The alleged bullying of Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty and ensuing media uproar prompted Channel 4 to drop the show from its usual pole position in the channel's winter schedule.
Over on Sky One last night, Ross Kemp in Afghanistan continued to pull in viewers. The show won the 9pm hour with 1.1 million viewers and a 5.6% share of multichannel viewing.
The series, which sees the former EastEnders hardman travel to Helmand province to film military operations against the Taliban, debuted on Sky One with 941,000 viewers and a 4.6% share on Monday January 21.
Other good multichannel performers last night included feature film repeat Look Who's Talking on BBC3, which drew 622,000 viewers and a 3% multichannel share between 8.30pm and 10pm.