[andyman]

People would rather watch Dancing on ice!!!
Maybe Big Brother is too good for the british public.

Dancing on ice?!?!

[Red Moon]

Originally posted by fingers
"live" feed or the Red Button, as you say costs money, it entails an extra transponder and they aint cheap!

Well given it's all digital so it's about bandwidth. Channel 4 has only so much bandwidth on freeview, sky etc. They buy that bandwidth and divide it between the channels. They give less bandwidth to the E4, More4 and film4 than they do to C4 which has more viewers. The result of this is that higher compression is being use for the less popular stations which results in digitisation effects being visible on the screen .

To have a red button takes up more bandwidth, without buying more the result will be poorer picture quality for the other channels which then have less bandwidth to operate in. This is seen as unacceptable by the people at Channel 4 and rightly so. On freeview ITV2, ITV3 and ITV4 all suffer from over compression and the picture quality is rubbish.

But it's not just that, in order to have the red button you also need more staff to police the output. You can just stream and not have anyone checking what is going out. That's happened in BB5 and people called the police who turned up at the house.

[andyman]

I do remember people calling the police over fight night... I'm sure their happy with Dancing on ice insted.

Was BB1 net live only?
I do remember the multiscreen on channel 4/E4 during BB2... Was the Channel living above it's means? Further you look back the channel gave more to its viewers.

[fingers]

True enough, but they don't "police" the stream they stick a trainee on the console and he/she just presses the MUTE button (and sometimes goes down the Pub leaving it pressed)

[Red Moon]

Originally posted by andymanI do remember the multiscreen on channel 4/E4 during BB2... Was the Channel living above it's means? Further you look back the channel gave more to its viewers.

No it wasn't living above it means, it was just giving the viewers what they wanted at the time and still want now. The payoff is in at more people watching the show, as they can watch live when they want.

Take way things and you are saying the format is dead. Once you do that it is dead.

[Red Moon]

Originally posted by fingers
True enough, but they don't "police" the stream they stick a trainee on the console and he/she just presses the MUTE button (and sometimes goes down the Pub leaving it pressed)

Well that is poor quality control.... if they want to produce a TV show they need to be professional.

[James]

Dancing on Ice is only on once a week whereas BB is on every night, so you could say that Celeb BB gets higher ratings.

They can't let anything get through on the live coverage that would get them in trouble so have to mute it a lot. Live coverage in the daytime is pretty unwatchabe with all the breaks. I don't know why they don't put a less censored version on the Internet, even if it was for a subscription.

[fingers]

Originally posted by James
Dancing on Ice is only on once a week whereas BB is on every night, so you could say that Celeb BB gets higher ratings.

They can't let anything get through on the live coverage that would get them in trouble so have to mute it a lot. Live coverage in the daytime is pretty unwatchabe with all the breaks. I don't know why they don't put a less censored version on the Internet, even if it was for a subscription.

It is a LAZY way of making a programme and it is not always for legal reasons it's because they want segments for their so-called Highlights show!

[Red Moon]

Originally posted by James
Dancing on Ice is only on once a week whereas BB is on every night, so you could say that Celeb BB gets higher ratings.

They can't let anything get through on the live coverage that would get them in trouble so have to mute it a lot. Live coverage in the daytime is pretty unwatchabe with all the breaks. I don't know why they don't put a less censored version on the Internet, even if it was for a subscription.

May be just that it is harder to commit yourself to something like Big Brother than Dancing on on Ice. It takes more time and thought to watch and follow than something that is on once a week.

They did have the live feed on subscription for a while before they pulled it on the c4 wedsite, but they never really did it correctly. Problem is that live feed was the same as the feed they were putting out over the air via the red button.So if you can get for free on freeview, why pay for it. Now the American BB internet feed had/has 4 screens to chose from and you could decide what you watched. That's the way it should have been done over here too.

[Jackie]

Originally posted by Red Moon

May be just that it is harder to commit yourself to something like Big Brother than Dancing on on Ice. It takes more time and thought to watch and follow than something that is on once a week.

They did have the live feed on subscription for a while before they pulled it on the c4 wedsite, but they never really did it correctly. Problem is that live feed was the same as the feed they were putting out over the air via the red button.So if you can get for free on freeview, why pay for it. Now the American BB internet feed had/has 4 screens to chose from and you could decide what you watched. That's the way it should have been done over here too.

Yes I agree the Red button has killed it for me I used to like watching it when I got the chance to sit down at home you could get a better picture of their personalitys and their true character without them editing the highlights at night now they just want you to see what they want you to see.

[Joelston]

If they are looking to save money, why not celebrate the 10th series by going right back to basics?

9 weeks, 10 housemates, very few twists etc

Tasks which don't require pathetic costumes, but push their stamina and help them get to know one another.

[Brekkie]

Originally posted by Red Moon
You can see that the CBB6 is losing interest on TiBB. When it started there was over 2800 posts on launch night. That dropped to just over 1500 a week later, and yesterday there were just over 1200 posts. Even without BB we normally get around a 1000 posts on a weekday!

Interest is notably down across forums and fansites online - and that IMO is down to one main factor, the axing of the live feed. But C4 want to kill off the fanbase so they don't care - I'm sure they cheer everyday when they see the new lows BB is hitting.

Originally posted by fingers
"live" feed or the Red Button, as you say costs money, it entails an extra transponder and they aint cheap!

On Freeview it's pricey, but on Sky C4 already own the stream they use for it so are effectively losing money by not using it rather than saving cash. The only way they might save a few quid is by not having to have someone censor it 24/7, but considering they've got a team of producers watching 24/7 that job is probably being done anyway.

Originally posted by James
I don't know why they don't put a less censored version on the Internet, even if it was for a subscription.

I think our best hope is if Endemol say to C4 if you're not providing a live feed, we will - and then Endemol host a live feed on their own site, probably on a subscription basis.

Originally posted by James
Dancing on Ice is only on once a week whereas BB is on every night, so you could say that Celeb BB gets higher ratings.

Whatever you're opinion on the show though the difference is Dancing on Ice is a well produced product in virtually every aspect.

Originally posted by fingers

Trouble is, you will never find out how many calls they get, Percentages tell you nothing!

Voting is supposed to be not for profit now, but that's open to interpretation as they could argue profits from the phone line are used to help fund the programme, so technically aren't profits.

Anyhow, voting is really low. No figures for BB9 but for BB8 they barely had 2m calls over the entire series (according to figures releases regarding their charity contribution) - this compares to 2m a week in earlier series, and generally at least 6-8m for finals alone.

Some people would be quick to blame all the phone in scandals (something ironically BB was never really a part of) or loss of text/interactive voting, but considering shows like The X Factor can still pull in over a million a week and 8-10m for the final that is obviously not the issue.

Also kudos to The X Factor for releasing all their voting figures in full at the end of the last series - Big Brother would be wise to do the same.

[Red Moon]

Another thread goes off topic and the people are having cheap little of digs at other members.

Pleas keep threads on topic.

If you want to chat then we have a chat and games section where you can chat all you like. Chatting in the BB section and insulting people just ruins the forum and makes people not want to post just in case they are personally attacked.

Red

[lily.]

Red, you may want to get yer editing pen out, and get rid of the Britney posts from page one.

[Red Moon]

Originally posted by Linda
Red, you may want to get yer editing pen out, and get rid of the Britney posts from page one.

Sorted..... I just removed just under 50% of the thread and edited one post to remove a quote.

So back on topic........

Red