I’m a Celebrity launch episode loses millions of viewers after planned ITV boycott

I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Right here! is perhaps about to lose its crown because the most-watched present on TV, with the 2023 launch episode shedding a large quantity of viewers on final 12 months.

The fact sequence is often a rankings winner for ITV, pulling in a median of 9 to 11 million viewers all through every sequence.

Nonetheless, the 2023 premiere, which noticed a new crop of stars enter Australian jungle, had an viewers peak of 7.8 million, and a median of simply 7 million.

This was down from the height of 10 million, and common of 9.1 million, who watched the launch episode in November 2022, and viewers are attributing the extreme dip to the inclusion of controversial ex-politician Nigel Farage.

For the reason that GB Information host was revealed to be showing on this 12 months’s sequence, long-time followers of the present introduced plans to boycott it, and the rankings dip has been branded “the Farage impact”.

Farage not too long ago stated he was “critically contemplating” the sequence after being supplied “actually fairly substantial sums of cash” to enroll. On his GB Information present, he stated producers have supplied him the present a number of instances up to now.

It’s been reported that the previous UKIP chief had been supplied £1.5m to enroll, which might make him the highest-paid movie star within the historical past of the present. This trounces Noel Edmond’s £600,000, which he acquired in 2022.

Farage is understood for espousing right-wing views on topics starting from immigration and the gender pay hole, and over time, has been accused of inciting xenophobia.

One viewer known as Farage’s casting “a cynical bid to boosts its rankings”, arguing that they shouldn’t be “giving publicity” to an “extremist” who “has assisted in doing untold injury to this nation”. A number of petitions have additionally been launched in an try and get the “hateful” Farage faraway from the present.

Comic London Hughes wrote: “If I went on #ImACeleb and discovered I used to be on the present with Nigel Farage, I’d depart and sue for racial negligence… however that’s simply me. I’d say that I’m fairly shocked that ITV is platforming a racist as a kind of leisure, however nothing actually surprises me anymore.”

Broadcaster Danny Baker added: “Nigel Farage being put into the jungle by @ITV exhibits how insensitive, crass, tone deaf, fool provocative, morally bankrupt a community they’re.”

I’m a Celebrity continues nightly on ITV1 and ITVX at 9pm.