Enough Already Big Brother!
I note with a heavy heart that Big Brother 9 starts tonight. Apparently the house is the biggest ever (oooh!), Big Brother more wiley than ever. No doubt the contestants will be more mind-numbingly stupid than ever and Davina McCall more irritating than ever.
After last year’s Celebrity BB racism row and lower ratings for the main series some predicted the programme’s demise. But Channel 4 are adamant that there is still great demand for the show and that ratings are not their main concern anyway.
When Big Brother started, it was (like Davina) fresh, quirky and fun. It was, without doubt, a good concept. But it’s become little more than a freak show, churning out transient tabloid fodder at the expense of decent programming every night of the week. No amount of cosmetic changes and hackneyed twists can disguise the fact that the format is tired.
Not all reality TV is bad. The genre still has legs, the success of ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ is testament to that. As everyone knows, I’m a sucker for ‘The Apprentice’! But please, please, no Big Brother 10.
June 6th, 2008 at 11:17 am
It seems people agree with you - the launch lost almost 1m viewers from 2007. Although the audience was still a healthy 5.4m….
June 6th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Unfortunately, 5.5m people, 10% of the UK population, don’t agree with you as we saw in last night’s opening episode from 21.00-22.40 which achieved a 28% share of total TV viewing at it’s peak.
Even 2m thought the BB Launch Night Project worthy of further indulgence between 2245-2345.
Nearly 2/3 of the total BB audience were female. 25% were Women 16-34, and believe it or not, 34% were Women 35+! 58% of the total audience were aged 35+ ! ASTOUNDING!
However, you are right in terms of audience lethargy, or is it apathy, or both! Over 6.4m watched the opening episode in May 2007 which is an 18% decline. Quite marked in my opinion.
The programme in the same slot the week before only achieved a paltry 1.6m so a 344% increase is good news for C4 in terms of revenue yield.
However, there is a consistency in terms of daily audience viewing at between 2.5 and 3.4m and of course an increase on eviction nights to an average 4.5-5.5m per week.
In 2007, 60% of total peak impacts for some audiences were delivered in BB. Frightening! Difficult to avoid for any advertiser, suitable or not, and making programmes outside of BB heavily over subscribed. Also, don’t forget the repeats at the weekend and the E4 live and supporting programmes i.e. Little Brother.
And, BB is one of the best programmes for driving interactive red button response. Viewers are more willing to leave the live broadcast as little happens minute by minute.
So, in conclusion, finally, it is highly unlikely that C4 will drop the BB franchise, in the near future so expect a 10 and an 11 and a 12…………………..oh and CBB next Jan.
Andy (Benny)
June 10th, 2008 at 9:13 am
I’m just bored with it all. Come on C4, you can do better than this!!!
June 17th, 2008 at 10:08 am
I agree! ill admit I’m some what addicted to reality tv but I’d say about 4 seasons of one reality show is a long enough time for me. I was ok with nine seasons of Friends for some reason maybe because it had different plots?? But there’s only so much you can do with a show that pretty much has the same concept all nine seasons in a row.
June 18th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
whether you love it or you hate it… it is still a big summer topic - hence this discussion!
so why would channel 4 drop big brother when it causes headlines and controversy?!
i say bring on the freakshow!!