Is it being fanciful and naive to want a Channel 4 style production of Big Brother?
 

I was watching Ultimate Big Brother back these last few days and was shocked with how better produced the highlights show were.

There was no overuse of the name tags for the housemates or there was no incidental music or Marcus Bentley being used too much.

I just hark for those days where the house mates we got were not the sons of famous chefs or have been in the public eye before.

I thought the idea of Big Brother was to audition for house mates who were ordinary members of the public like you and I wanting to participate in an once in a lifetime experience.

Not already be sort of famous and want to enhance their media career as these housemates we have got this series. That is the reason I do not watch the main series. At least with the last series we had Jack who worked in McDonalds and the money he got changed not only his life but his families.

If someone in this years house wins, you wonder what impact if any it will have. Stop going to casting agencies for housemates and get real people wanting to experience the house for themselves.

I am one of the Channel 4 Big Brother fans and I gave Big Brother a go on 5. I just do not want the show on the air in the way it is at the moment as it could be so much better.

Get Sharon Powers, Phil Edgar Jones back on board as senior advisors for better creative input.

Many of us feel the exact same way

At this point it is. I hoped after Big Brother 14 (the most successful series on Channel 5) they would head in the right direction but they took their meddling to an all time high the following year and reduced the live coverage that we were given. I had hopes that the failures of Big Brother 15 would at least make them return to something closer to BB13/14 (Neither of which were close to ideal) but BB16 was even worse.

The thing that frustrates me is people who try to make out the first two weeks of BB16 were a return to the old days just because the housemates were "Nicer" than the previous year. Showbiz was evicted without a public vote (something that happened to Marlon and Danielle the previous year which led to a lot of complaints), Nick was told he had to nominate face to face every week (a punishment that meant nothing) and Jack won immunity for 3 weeks (after all the controversy with Helen). There was this sort of interference on the FIRST night. And the choice of housemates were appalling. The men were wimps and the girls were older and dull. It was a terrible series.

The fact is the producers can't help themselves. They're addicted to getting involved. It's nothing new. They did this on Channel 4 as well and ruined the programme back then. It was BB10 that was the first to take away a massive amount of live coverage and that was the worst rated series ever on Channel 4.

The last truly good series imo was BB9.

I would just add that I don't buy into the idea that BB was always for just "Normal people". BB1 was full of people who wanted television careers. Dean from BB2 was in a band that had had a recording contract and Narrinder was as fame hungry as anyone I'd ever seen on television. I don't have a problem with this. It's to be expected. But the choice of housemates is the least of the problems.

Unfortunately I think those days are far behind us, as much as us die hard fans wish it wasn't so, seems like the future of Big brother is minor celebs and a TOWIE/Geordie Shore type of thing

Was it? They still had good amounts of Live feed for BB10 though, I remember it as the last show I watched through the night sometimes when good stuff was going on. BB10 is actually in my top 5, the HMs were so good that year

BB10 was the first series that did not have 24/7 coverage. The live feed on E4 would sometimes start as late as 1 am. More often than not the only person awake was Marcus.

BB11 brought the live feed back but only on subscription.

The last series to have the full 24/7 live feed for free was BB9 and that was the last really good series.

I think it's a bit pointless to hanker for a long gone past of a show that has moved channels. It's not channel 4. It's unlikely to be again.

Except that once upon a time Channel 5 did reality shows that did have 24/7 coverage. Back To Reality had a red button interactive service that allowed viewers to watch 24/7. It was actually a highly amusing series.

I didn't watch BB9, I hated BB8 so decided to take a break after that, i did enjoy BB10 though

Yes. Definitely.

When things usrd to unfold naturally and not artificially induced by scenarios BB cooks up.

Big Brother 8 was the death knell for BB on Channel 4. It came after the Jade Goody fiasco but so many things were wrong it...

1. The all female start

2. The drip feeding of men into the house

3. The hysterical overreaction to Emily's silly mistake

4. The appalling ejection of Emily in the middle of the night with her saying "But I'm not wearing any underwear" as she was told to exit.

5. The fixing of nominations to keep Charley in longer than anyone could bear (after bringing Nikki back the year before)

6. The abysmal Half way house idea (which they seem to have been inspired by this year and which ended up being even worse)

BB7 had, until Nikki's eviction, an average viewing audience of 4.8 million. BB10 had an average viewing audience of less than 2.5 million. They lost over 2 million viewers in a couple of years.

As for BB10. It was awful. In the first week they had Sophie and Freddie rename themselves Dogface and Halfwit. They had Noirin walking around with glasses and a moustache drawn on her face. The live coverage was seriously reduced and the tasks were utter crap.

It's pointless to think like that, RTV in general has moved on there wasn't any TOWIE/GS etc when C4 were producing BB. As much as it was better it's never going to happen.

What baffles me is the influence these shows have had on television. They got what? 1 million viewers on ITV2? Yet they've influenced X factor and Britain's Got Talent (with their scripted backstage stuff), 2 shows that get 8 - 12 million viewers, and some bright spark thought it was better for BB to go in something like this direction on Channel 5 rather than go back to how things used to be done on Channel 4 when it could get peak audiences of 5 million+.

The only way we will get a Channel 4 produced quality version of Big Brother is if it was back on Channel 4.

Channel 5 have their cheap, tacky and TOWIE/GS/EoTB version of the show which we have no way of getting rid of unless the people that hate the show stop watching and ratings go >1m every night even for CBB. They also have their target audience of teenagers, LGBT and middle aged women to cater for whereas Channel 4s Big Brother was for everyone to watch.

I would love Big Brother to be axed by Channel 5 and go to a professional channel like Channel 4 or even Sky and let them get BBUK back to some sort of decent show again.

I agree with all the points you made about BB8, exactly why i skipped BB9. BB10 i agree that the producers put no effort into tasks/twists etc but I believe that it had arguably the best mix of HMs in there and they managed to carry the series themselves and make it pretty good

I dunno. There was a lot of dead wood that series. New housemates that walked out pretty soon after entering, who no one remembers. I don't think the mix was as good as BB2, BB3, BB5, BB6, BB7 or BB9. I think BB11 actually provided me with more laughs. I thought Ben was hysterical that year.

I did like Sophie and Marcus a lot though. In fact, Sophie remains my fave winner.

Oh God, here's where we completely disagree then haha, i hated all the BB11 Hms :laugh:

BB10 had some legends (love or hate)

Freddie, Marcus, Sree, Angel, Isaac, Bea, Siavash, Noirín even Rodrigo. Sophie for me was dull and a crap winner :fan:

Brian Dowling is by far the best winner imo :hee:

Tbf this happened because the production cast badly that year and Charley was the only real A star Housemate that they had that series.

Much better group in general than BB10 imo. Apart from the ones left with Josie at the end. And it wasn't the mess that BB10 was until the end.

I'm at a loss as to how Angel and Isaac were "Legends". Siavash was awful. Bea was truly frightening though.

Sophie was funny when she was drunk.

Siavash had a great sense of humour until about the last 3 weeks I'd say.

She never had any popularity like Nikki did though, who both her and Chanelle seemed to be imitating. A lot of people did like Chanelle though.

They were interesting HMs, fascinating to watch. Sophie imo faked being drunk and showing your knickers isn't what i consider funny

It passed me by. I remember Marcus saying Siavash wouldn't win because he was too much of a "Bull****ter"

I think Bea was probably the best late entrant ever. Probably the scariest woman ever on the show. And one of my favourite moments was the following year just after Ben had been evicted, he was in the BBBM audience with Bea there as well and introduced her saying "I've just met this lovely person Bea" :laugh:

terrifying woman but compelling viewing, this is what I mean, I hated her but what a HM all the same

Charley was a mix of Science and Nikki which was gonna give her a more iconic presence for the die hards (which the show will want to please to an extent) than someone just copying her Diary Room rants and then is just in a dull Showmance for the rest of the time.