Wednesday TV Ratings: CBS’ ‘Big Brother’ Scores Big in Pandemic Return

Jim Halterman August 6, 2020, 12:00 pm

The Wednesday, August 5 premiere of Season 22 of CBS’s summer staple, Big Brother, easily grabbed the most attention from viewers, curious to not only have original programming in a quiet August month but also to see if the show would function any differently during a pandemic.

The answer? Other than host Julie Chen Moonves working solo with no studio audience and the two-week quarantine for the 16 houseguests, it was business as usual on the reality hit. The premiere won the night in the 18-49 demo with a strong 1.0 rating. In total viewers, it tied with its CBS timeslot lead-in, freshman competition series Tough As Nails, which only grabbed a 0.5 rating but a strong 3.7 million viewers.

The fifth episode of ABC’s new sitcom United We Fall dipped slightly to its series low (3.3 million viewers) but it wasn’t such a drop from the previous airings that the network should be fearful of waning interest.

Meet the 'Big Brother' Season 22 'All-Stars' Cast (PHOTOS)

Here’s the breakdown for Wednesday, August 5, 2020 (numbers are fast-affiliate based):

Time	Show	Adults 18-49 rating	Total Viewers (millions)
8 p.m.	Tough As Nails (CBS)	0.5	3.7
	United We Fall (ABC)	0.5	3.3
	MasterChef – R (Fox)	0.4	1.5
	Chicago Med – R (NBC)	0.3	3.0
	The 100 (CW)	0.1	505,000
8:30 p.m.	The Goldbergs – R (ABC)	0.4	2.0
9:00 p.m.	Big Brother – P (CBS)	1.0	3.7
	Chicago Fire – R (NBC)	0.3	3.0
	The Conners – R (ABC)	0.3	1.8
	Coroner – P (CW)	0.1	719,000
9:30 p.m.	American Housewife – R (ABC)	0.3	1.5
10 p.m.	Chicago P.D. – R (NBC)	0.4	3.4
	Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (ABC)	0.3	1.3