I think Viacom will steer Big Brother towards the Channel 4 days and pick housemates who are members of the public rather than being on the cusp of fame. I do not feel that it is fair for the people that have submitted audition tapes on Youtube that this years housemates to have been pre-selected. That is what is turning people off.

There seems to be constant friction. It can impact the show in two ways. It can serve to attract more people to watch as they would be intrigued to see what is going on and what the dynamics are or it can go the other way and be a turn off.

Sadly, it appears to be the latter. I know there will never be peace and harmony in Big Brother throughout the whole duration as that is being idealistic but it seems to be every day on this forum that someone is falling out with someone else.

This is for me is killing Big Brother.

I agree with you on that and someone said on the last page that Viacom care more about the program than the money it makes and the Current C5 do hire some people for Big brother who will generate gossip for example Helen this year

I hope they do but apparently according to people the 'glamour housemates' will only get worse with Viacom on charge, somebody said it from USA on an article about Viacom taking charge of Big Brother.

Considering Viacom are in charge of the likes of Geordie Shore, I can't imagine the quality improving drastically.

Me either, only thing that gives me hope is that they're willing to invest more into it because they're such a big company

What makes any of you think they would steer it into the Channel 4 days?

If anything Viacom will make it ALOT more explicit think BB5 but far more sex. Do you not know what type of shows they produce this isn't BBC1 taking over its a company who broadcast highly controvercial reality tv shows.

Viacom is a massive company, perhaps one of the largest globally. Some of the channels they own include: BET, MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon, Nick Jr., Comedy Central as well as Paramount Pictures.

I imagine Viacom taking charge of C5 is clever. It suits very well. Look at C5s Sunday movie slots.. that would fit perfectly with new releases from Paramount if they're interested in bigger ratings, while Milkshake performs well for young children, coinciding with the Nick brand for little kids. VH1 used to have a focus for music, though, like MTV and BET is more reality and entertainment based. Also, Viacom has hundreds of American programmes on air.. this works well with the endless amounts of US imports the channel has, look at 5USA! A whole dedicated channel!! I'm sure much of the C5 structure will be similar, however the fact that they had announced a much larger budget on C5, improving the quality of the 5 News network too, and the fact that they want a deeper input into British home-grown TV shows suggests that it could be a channel for all and elements could be both higher and lower class to suit a wider market, its wide audience will probably be similar as it is now, perhaps with better shows through higher funding.. but who knows! It'll take at least a year to fully understand whether this would turn out a success or not.. The Great British public aren't always open to new!

I doubt it'd make C5 more favourable in terms of viewership than Channel 4, but nonetheless, holding an extra 6% in the British market, (C5, 5*, 5USA and +1, HD and +24 channels) with which they already own 3% across all their channels already, to make a 9% share of the entire British market is fair. Channel 4 and it's endless number of channels isn't shy at around 11%, ITV has around 20% and BBC has around 27% so perhaps C5 won't be the sole benefit, but more-so the rest of Viacom's channels, allowing for easier promotion of shows, on print and TV and increasing jobs in the UK media industry.

Viacom is currently the 8th biggest TV company in Britain in terms of ratings. The BBC is first, followed by ITV, C4, C5, BSkyB, UKTV then Virgin. Viacom taking control of C5 as it stands today would mean the company jumps from 8th place to 4th, not bad just for purchasing some channels!


For those worrying about the state of Big Brother, and from my understanding of the company and video interviews I have seen of the 'big man' in charge at Viacom, Big Brother wise, I'm sure if Big Brother is an issue for the company, they'd move it to a later slot or one of their other 10+ channels. If that is the case, they need to learn from C4 and would need some SERIOUS money! You can't just remove BB and have nothing to follow up. That's about 13 hours a week of extra programming.. which relates to 13, 1 hour shows for several months... that would mean (including CBB) close to 200 hours to be filled with other shows throughout the year.. and with the CSI franchise slowly winding down let's hope Viacom stick to their word and are sensible with their money.

The fact that Big Brother is perhaps the largest show for the channel today (okay, not always in terms of ratings, but that depends on the series!) should be enough to suggest they need to improve it. I just hope they look deeply into the ratings, TV competition and viewer thoughts.. etc. BB is perhaps the best way to achieve a cross-promotion platform.. and success across the company's other channels and print companies, like with the tabloid newspapers and magazines that the previous owner of C5 also had in his portfolio! I imagine Winter CBB's high of 3.0 million viewers in officials was helped with a lot of advertisement in the press!

I'd like to think that Viacom are aware of all of this.. I'm sure we'll see within the next few months! Also, does anybody know if Channel 5 is getting a rebrand??, Desmond rebranded the channel from 'Five' to 'Channel 5' and I was wondering whether we'd see a name change or logo change etc?? I for one find the design stale and uninviting, perhpas a pop of 3D or more fun would influence viewers, but hey, I don't know what they've got up their sleeves, this is all opinion based!

Following up from my previous post, found an article online about what somebody else thinks! I love the bit where they discuss Channel 5 as a channel solely based on 'Films, Football and Fu**ing!'

http://www.theguardian.com/media/201...ackout-omnicom

If anyones interested, Channel 5's shares since beginning are as follows.

1997 - 2.3% +
1998 - 4.3% +
1999 - 5.4% +
2000 - 5.7% +
2001 - 5.8% +
2002 - 6.3% +
2003 - 6.5% +
2004 - 6.4% -
2005 - 6.4% o
2006 - 4.9% -
2007 - 5.3% +
2008 - 4.6% -
2009 - 4.8% +
2010 - 4.5% -

DESMOND TAKE OVER

2011 - 4.4% -
2012 - 4.5% +
2013 - 4.1% -
2014 - 4.0% - (currently.. remember we still have CBB to allow for improvements!)

It's fair to say that as a whole Channel 5 is unstable. It's ratings rose for 7 years before falling and since that time it's never really improved significantly. The reason Desmond bought the channel to begin with was to improve its share. Big Brother is always sited as the main aid. Channel 5, although the share was fair at around 4.5% average for several of it's years before new ownership, it was operating at a loss of £30,000,000 a year. Compare that to Desmond's takeover, their was a profit gain of £70,000,000, despite similar annual ratings! So in my eyes, the Channel really could benefit from Viacom's money, even if ratings don't improve it's highly likely that profit wise, and with it's other channels, things will improve greatly!

Let's just hope Viacom Channel 5 are a little less dependent on Big Brother as Desmond Channel 5 is... we do not need a repeat of C4 with a clutter of tens of different BB shows and then the dramatic cut off which lead to even more money being spent to fill the empty schedule!

Oh my god!! I so called this the other day when I posted for people to look at the lower quality of adverts being shown on Channel 5.

I just noticed the ads lately have been far more budget and not aimed at the demographic at all.

Where it used to be full of Ministry Of Sounds, films and big brand companies I noticed instead its more ads for cheese and aldi.

Don't forget sex toys! I guess sex sells on Channel 5!

Here;s another perspective.. it's not essentially C5 based but it gives an idea into what MTV does and what they want.. perhaps Channel 5 could follow suit.. the thought of social media does wonders for BB, so the article justifies marketing in this way very well! just look at launch night tweets! Nearly 80,000 tweets! By far the most of the week!

http://www.theguardian.com/media/201...-channel-5-mtv

Oh yeah lovehoney.co.uk plus there was also an advert for some new casino site where 2 girls are shouting "ooh that's a big one" in orgasmic voices.

But the thing is Channel 5 really do need money from advertisers imo.

Big Brother is such an expensive show and with them basically being black listed surely they are going to have to drop their ad space price and pretty much sell to the nearest bidder.

I hadn't seen that casino advert.. I think I don't want to either! :joker:

Yeh, it's super expensive.. but it does make me think about the ITV2 idea.. like if a channel that small and insignificant compared to the big ones had even a thought about aquiriung it once.. surely it's got some form of profitability?

Maybe the whole lack of advertisement can be seen through all the product placement this series. They have those Microsofts Surface tablets, L'Oreal, Ribena, Dawn Of The Apes, SuperCasino, even that Disco person, who I'm to young to even know who that is! and several more, which since beginning to type I've forgotten!

Sadly with the adverts downgrading it's a loss to brands as well as C5. Big Brother is the ideal target for a lot of brands, and this decision for them to be removed from C5 until 2015 will result in a lot of angry brands out there. Unfortunately for them they have no choice in the matter having an agency 'decide' where is best for them.

C5 have been clever with supporting Big Brother with product placement being heavily focused on in BB15 and BB14, which I think is a good way to go to secure the shows future, most product placement you hardly notice and it's edited in very nicely half the time.

C5 will be lowering prices for advertising space I think, believe I read that somewhere.

Marcus claims over on his twitter account that the show has been contracted for another year?

OMG even Cassandra has left the advert lol

She was appalled with the viewing figures and quit. :laugh:

I saw this like before this series started but I'm sure it's just a mis-thought unless he posted it again recently. It's all over the place with the Viacom switch over, which happens this week!

Last year Marcus confirmed that he had agreed a two year deal for him to narrate on Big Brother (bringing him to 2015), so maybe he's going by that? Maybe C5 had solid plans in place to renew BB but the sale of C5 blocked that off from happening soon? Who knows.

According to Botherbar (which doesn't update all the time but is very accurate), it got 1.42m! Highest since the first Sunday! Also the share was a very impressive 8.9%.

BOTS increased to 501k (5.7%).

Thats great news it was trending last night! Hopefully armageddon week will steer it into the 1.8m maybe 2.0m mark HOPEFUllY!

Nice rating. 1.5m + for next week is the target

1.42 is a brilliant figure for 10PM, and that share just can't be argued with