I kind of like Davina, she's a much better host than Julie Chen.
I think the suggestion about ending CBB and LB is good, although I've never seen LB. I just think it's a big much to have all these shows related to BB on all the time. It gets tiring. What would be great is if they either pick all the new houseguests by random, like they did this year with Mario
or do something similar to this old fox show called
Paradise Hotel. Basically, I think it went that every week people paired up as couples leaving one odd person out. That person had to check out and one new one checked in. It was one of the best Summer reality shows on in a America at the time. Lots of drama, fighting and no one could ever get comfortable because each week someone left and someone new came in. It was a constant revolving door.
Here's my idea of how the PH format can fit for a new run of BB UK (I also took a bit from ABC's Bachelor Pad, that would work well as an opener):
15 Houseguests would be selected - 7 women and 8 men. When they first enter the house, they are given a game called 'first impressions' During that game they are asked into the diary room one by one to give their first impressions of everyone in the house. Once everyone has had their say in the diary room, Big Brother gives them a quiz on first impressions where they have to guess who said what. Girls compete with girls, men with men. BB announces which guy and girl scored the highest, they are then paired up and so on down the line until there's one odd man or woman out. Couples will share the same bed in the evenings and compete in food and other competitions during the week. By the end of the first week, the ladies are asked to randomly draw numbers from a bag in the diary room but will not be allowed to look at the number.
Friday's will be check out night where the public votes for their favorite man and woman to stay, they will then be coupled together; it doesn't matter if they were coupled before or not. Those people are the safe pairing for the coming week, however will not be eligible for public vote the following week. Then it's the rest of the ladies turn to announce their couples (in order of the numbers they drew). One week is ladies choice, the next week it's the men. The odd man or woman standing has to leave as two new ones check in.
I think that keeps the men to woman ratio balanced and makes it much more exciting. It gives the guests and public an equal sharing of the outcome and makes it more important to have a strong social and strategic game, not to mention the romance possibility. Imagine how much mischief the public could create in the house by breaking up a close couple for the week?
There would be no more Josie/John James type couplings that lay in bed all day, isolating themselves from the group. They would have to interact.
As for the weekly competition aspect of things;
the couple voted for by the public will have special dining and lodging for the week; like a separate luxury suite with a personal chef or some other week-long luxury. While the other couples battle it out (similar to the American BB have/have not format) to reserve a table at the dining hall or something to that effect. The lowest scoring couple will get a salad bar pass for the week (lol). This will keep the tension high and create a bit of friction and envy.
To keep everyday exciting the participants engaged in some sort of activity (which the current BB UK does well at), they can have additional luxury contests, for spa visits and other perks on Monday's they could have a power couple contest, the winners will be exempt from the public vote and check out night, runners up get a secret advantage they are not told until check out night (for instance during the first week, the secret advantage could be that the woman in the paring can select a mate first before the others). Those that scored the worst get a disadvantage...like for instance
they can only wear swimwear for the week or they cannot have any of their grooming tools ie makeup, razors, hair extensions, ect..
So anyway, of course there are issues with this idea 1. They would have to figure out a way to tweak it after the first season to include same-sex couples (Maybe season two could be a mix of both) and they would have check out more than one person every other week to keep that odd man out thing going. 2. Channel 5 would have to figure out how to fund it. I believe over in the UK your networks are publicly funded, whereas here, networks are private corporations beholden to advertisers, therefore they have piles of money to work with. Reality programming is the cheapest thing they can produce. In the UK, I think it's different for you all--but I could be wrong so pardon me if I'm misinformed.
