[JohnnyBB]

inside big brother says,

Speaking at the Edinburgh International Television Festival, Ford insisted that the live feed service was no longer important as the show had evolved and fans had moved on.

Ford said: ‘We could have done live feed if we wanted to. But we’ve all moved on from watching people sleeping in bed.’

He argued that live feed was a big deal in Big Brother’s early years on Channel 4 but pointed out that there had been a significant drop in numbers and interest in recent years. Ford said that Channel 5 instead chose to spend money saved from having no live feed on the house and online Twitter and Facebook services.

Talking about the viewing figures for Celebrity Big Brother thus far, he pointed out that the series had been rating similarly to how the final series did on Channel 4 last year. He acknowledged, however, that ratings would most likely fall for the normal series as ‘history has told us ratings will go down slightly’.

Ford said he hoped Big Brother’s popularity on Channel 5 would encourage viewers to discover other programmes on the network. He explained that had BB11 winner Josie Gibson’s reality show aired now instead of four months ago, he believes it would’ve rated 50% higher due to the Big Brother inheritance.

Speaking about the show itself, Ford said the current series had the ‘best lineup ever’ and that more celebrities would be going into the house over the next two weeks, as well as some ‘surprises’.