Celebrity Big Brother is being tipped to be axed in 2018.

The show is currently up for renewal at the end of the year, and its future on UK TV remains uncertain.

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The latest edition of Celebrity Big Brother kicked off on Tuesday night to its lowest ever January viewing figures, with 2.1 million tuning in.

That number dropped by a third last night (Wednesday) as fewer than 1.4 million watched the first highlights show.

Wednesday night's CBB ratings were down around 500,000 viewers on last year's first highlights and 800,000 on 2016.

It's led bookies to offer odds that this could be the last year of the reality show on Channel 5.

Bookmakers Paddy Power are offering odds of 8/1 for the channel to axe the show at the conclusion of this series, as Channel 4 did in 2010.

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CBB was dropped by its old host channel following an average viewing figure of just two million in the 2009 series and with this year’s opener averaging just 2.1 million viewers, it doesn’t look good for the Channel 5 version either.

Spokesperson Paddy Power commented, “With viewing figures for this year’s opener down 1.5 million from five years ago, we could be saying goodbye to the Diary Room very soon.

"The final eviction of this year’s show might just be Channel 5 giving CBB the boot.”

Of course ratings could well turn around.

Friday night will see the latest live show as a number of men join the current all women cast.

Rumoured to be taking part are footballer John Barnes, Love Island's Jonny Mitchell, Boyzone's Shane Lynch, US rapper Ginuwine, The Apprentice's Andrew Brady and ballet star Wayne Sleep.

For now, Celebrity Big Brother 2018 continues nightly on Channel 5 at 9PM.

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