When is Celebrity Big Brother coming back?

Ever since its inauspicious debut in the year 2000, Big Brother has become an annual rite of passage (or, self-inflicted torture) each and every summer. The reality competition series which looked like a good bet to get canceled after its very first installment will return in July with its landmark 25th season. (The math is a bit weird because CBS aired an extra spring installment in 2008 due to a writer's strike.)

While Big Brother burrowed its way into CBS' schedule — and our all-too-receptive brains — to make itself an annual event during the warmer months, it appeared as if the reality TV parasite was set to consume even more of its host when the Julie Chen Moonves-led series launched a Celebrity edition in 2018.

CBS Miesha Tate, Todrick Hall, and Cynthia Bailey on 'Celebrity Big Brother' season 3.

Featuring at least somewhat famous faces like Mark McGrath, Shannon Elizabeth, and Omarosa, season 1 of Celebrity Big Brother (or Big Brother: Celebrity Edition, as it is known on your DVRs) debuted on Feb. 7, 2018 to compete almost nightly against the Winter Olympics. The season lasted only 13 episodes over two-and-a-half weeks and culminated with Marissa Jaret Winokur's victory over Ross Matthews.

Realizing they had a model for cheap, original programming that could act as a stopgap in place of scripted reruns as well as a placeholder until other reality shows like Survivor returned in the spring, CBS brought back the celebrity edition a year later in 2019. It was an installment filled with fireworks as well as the relentlessly entertaining antics of Tamar Braxton, who ultimately triumphed in a unanimous vote over former NFL star Ricky Williams.

But even with decent numbers — the second season brought in an average of 4.4 million viewers, down slightly from the 5 million season 1 audience — CBB was somewhat surprisingly not brought back for February 2020. Or in 2021. But as the Winter Olympics returned in 2022, so did Celebrity Big Brother as counterprogramming. Todd Bridges, Chris Kattan, and Lamar Odom were among the Houseguests in a season most notable for animosity — from both contestants and viewers — towards Todrick Hall due to his actions and comments while in the house.

But with temperatures now dipping and February just a few weeks away, one can't help but wonder: Where art thou, Celebrity Big Brother?

CBS seemingly has no plans to air another edition anytime soon. There have been no announcements. The 2023 spring schedule has been released with nary a mention of Houseguests or Zingbots or Golden Power of Vetos. And Chen Moonves has not been tweeting out any cryptic clues. When contacted by EW about this matter of vital national importance, CBS responded that there was no season currently scheduled. Which we already knew, because if it had been on the schedule, we wouldn't have been reaching out in the first place. Cagey!

Monty Brinton /CBS 'Celebrity Big Brother' season 2 houseguests Anthony Scramucci, Ricky Williams, Dina Lohan, Jonathan Bennett, Kandi Burruss, and Joey Lawrence.

But why has the network seemingly forsaken Celebrity Big Brother? Yes, the ratings for season 3 did not measure up to the first two (nabbing an average of only 2.6 million viewers), but that audience erosion seems almost par for the course with any network broadcast when you consider the amount of cord-cutting happening out there and the fact that some of that audience may have moved over to watching on what was formerly CBS All Access and is now Paramount+.

In fact, CBS' streaming platform is an argument unto itself as to exactly why another season of Celebrity Big Brother makes so much gosh darn sense. In the worldwide streaming wars — in which Paramount+ is lagging behind the other leaders — any asset to drive loyal fans to your platform is key, and Big Brother fans are definitely, if nothing else, loyal. And while some may already subscribe to Paramount+ to watch the live feeds and real-time competitions on regular seasons, giving them an entire exclusive season would seem to be something of a no brainer.

Bill Inoshita/CBS 'Celebrity Big Brother' season 1

That's actually exactly what the platform did back in 2016. CBS staged a special fall season of Big Brother called Big Brother: Over the Top that had nothing to do with arm wrestling and streamed exclusively on CBS All Access. Why Paramount+ has not repeated that experiment — especially as more and more viewers move over to streaming subscriptions and Netflix produces reality competition series like The Circle and The Mole — remains something of a mystery.

But if Celebrity Big Brother is going to remain an on-network offering, when might we see it again? Well, if season 2 was a bit of a scheduling anomaly and Celebrity Big Brother remains primarily a tool for Winter Olympics counterprogramming, that means our next installment would not be until February of 2026 — a prospect that seems almost as scary as Tamar Braxton during a haunted house HOH competition

Perhaps the biggest problem for Big Brother fans is that CBS is just too damn successful and has too many shows that perform well on the air. It's why another 20-year-plus reality series in The Amazing Race has kept switching nights and timeslots and seasons of the year while also disappearing intermittently with full seasons in the can waiting for a hole to fill.

Of course, TV schedules are ever-changing, and all it takes is a few underperforming shows with the initials NCIS or FBI in the title to create both an opening and an opportunity. And while waiting three more years for another hit of reality TV madness involving "celebrities" the average person on the couch may or may not recognize may seem like an impossible task for those used to watching every single second of Metta World Peace conversing with a stuffed owl, you know the show's motto: expect the unexpected.

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