‘Big Brother’ Scores Another Huge Ratings Win

Big Brother is enjoying its winning ratings streak this summer. The CBS reality TV series topped Sunday night in the 8 p.m. key demographic (1.4), beating its closest competitor, Celebrity Family Feud, by 27 percent (1.1).

Despite its lower demo rating, Celeb Family Feud wound up as Sunday’s most-watched entertainment program for a sixth consecutive first-run with 5.99 million viewers, Deadline reports. A 60 Minutes repeat (0.7, 7.48 million) was the night’s most watched program, racking up 1.49 million more viewers than Celeb Family Feud.

In the 9 p.m hour, ABC‘s The $100,000 Pyramid (0.9, 5.09 million) won its hour for the second week in a row in both metrics. To Tell the Truth (0.8, 3.89 million) did the same at 10 p.m., beating out the CBS‘ NCIS: Los Angeles rerun (0.3, 2.59 million) as well s NBC‘s original episode of Shades of Blue (0.5, 3.11 million). NBC’s best performer of the night came in the 8-10 p.m. slot of an America’s Got Talent rerun (0.6, 4.11 million).

As a whole, ABC (0.9, 4.84 million) beat out CBS (0.7, 4.36 million), NBC (0.5, 3.61 million) and Fox (0.4, 1.18 million) for the night.

Part of CBS‘ top demo ratings with Big Brother may have stemmed from the controversy surrounding the contestants and the racial discussion that took place on live feeds this week.

Prefaced by a disclaimer that warned viewers of “racial prejudices and other beliefs” from houseguests that “CBS does not condone,” Sunday’s episode showed a discussion between JC Mounduix and Bayleigh Dayton, who admitted to JC, who is under 5 feet tall, that she wasn’t sure what the word “dwarf” meant.

“The people who are little [people] or dwarves are people who have a genetic condition,” JC explained, according to The Washington Post. “I’m just a short guy.”

“Okay, let me ask you this,” Bayleigh continued. “Is there a difference between a midget and a dwarf?”

CBS bleeped the word “midget.” JC told Bayleigh that “the m-word” is derogatory and compared it to specific slurs for gay people and black people — both of which CBS bleeped as well.

Bayleigh, who is black, looked stunned as JC’s usage of the n-word. “You’re not allowed to say that. Don’t do that again,” she told JC.

In a long, tense discussion, Bayleigh argued that no one should ever say that word and said that while she said the word “midget,” it was because she was trying to educate herself about the term and that it was different from JC using the racial slur in a statement.

JC responded defensively, saying that she was taking it out of context and that he had only said it to underscore the pain of “the m-word” for little people.

Later, JC took Bayleigh aside to apologize. They both began to find common ground and spoke about discrimination they had both faced.

The extended scenes were rare for Big Brother in its edited-for-TV episodes. CBS previously condemned statements from houseguests that aired during live feeds (which are viewable 24/7 online) but did not include any of those incidents in edited episodes.

Sunday’s Big Brother episode also saw Sam Bledsoe win the Head of Household competition and nominate houseguests Haleigh Brougher and Kaitlyn Herman for eviction.