UK consumers happy to endorse the cult of celebrity

A total of 86% of UK consumers believe that society is pre-occupied with celebrity culture, figures from independent market analyst Datamonitor reveal. However the findings coincide with the opening episode of the new series of The X Factor being watched by an estimated 11 million viewers and the penultimate episode of Big Brother 11 being the second most watched of the five main networks at the 10pm slot.

Michael Hughes, analyst at Datamonitor states 'despite consumers indicating they are fatigued with celebrity culture, opening viewing figures for this year's The X Factor are higher than last year. The fact that The X Factor claimed such a high proportion of the viewing audience at that slot time shows that consumers are happy to go along with the cult of celebrity'.

Hughes adds 'given the added nostalgic theme of Ultimate Big Brother it will be interesting to see the proportion of the viewing audience captured. Nevertheless it shows that while shows like this eventually have a saturation point, consumers continue to turn to celebrity culture for both excitement and escapism reasons, and this will not reside in the near future'.