[zakman440]

Channel 5 boss Ben Frow has admitted that he wants to bump the ‘civilian’ version of Big Brother UK to an 11pm timeslot – but the show’s too expensive for him to do so.

Question marks were raised over Big Brother’s future in primetime in 2014, when a report claimed C5’s owner Viacom was considering pushing it to 11pm – a move first mooted a year before.

Almost two years later, Frow – C5’s director of programmes – reignited the rumours yesterday, when he explained that it had aired at 9pm this summer as a defence against recent sporting events.

Speaking at the Edinburgh Television Festival, he said: “This is an exceptional summer because you’ve had the Euros, then you’ve had the Olympics. We strategically played Big Brother at 9 o’clock in order to protect ourselves, and out of the three commercial channels, we were hit least by this juggernaut.”

Despite facing tough competition, from ITV2’s Love Island as well as the sport, the latest Big Brother is thought to be the most watched in three years.

However, although ratings are up and it’s an asset to C5 against competition from rival channels, Frow admitted he wants to “take a little bit of the spotlight” off Big Brother – and would move it to 11pm if he could.

“In future, Big Brother will play at 10… maybe Celebrity will be at 9,” he said. “Ideally I’d have it at 11, but it’s a bit expensive to play at 11 at the moment.”

The 17-year-old format reportedly costs £20million per series, while C5’s annual programming budget is understood to be just over £200million.

The broadcaster has already cut Big Brother’s length by two weeks, with this year’s run ranking as the joint second-shortest ‘civilian’ BB ever globally.

Despite his mixed signals towards Big Brother, Frow insisted it is a “very valuable” and “really good” show and suggested that he doesn’t want to be the person that “kills” it.

http://www.bbspy.co.uk/cbb18/news/08...#ixzz4ISHstIY8

Since this point was getting some traction in the thread on his full session I felt it would be better to make a separate thread for it. It's an illogical move for him to do this tbh - if anything moving it to 10/11 will make it rate much lower, plus the fact that CBB might stay at 9 just smacks of him wanting that extra excuse to finally bin the civilian show.

[MB.]

Ugh trash

[Cal.]

So we'll have 'BB LOWEST EVER RATINGS' headlines every ****ing day next year then

[Cal.]

'It isn't performing as well as we'd like' *evicts 8 housemates and puts 10 new ones in on day 4*

[Vicky.]

Why though? They would still need the ridiculous warnings before each segment and such, which really shouldnt be needed on any show after the watershed. Also this would be too late for many viewers as they have work the next day

[Jordan.]

Please end this show before they tarnish it any more

[Cal.]

It's such a shame that nothing he has said sounds promising after such a strong civilian series this year.

(Although nothing about BB17 seemed promising to begin with)

[Jason.]

BB17 being good was down to luck and casting anyway the production was far from perfect.

[Yaki da]

Originally Posted by Jason.

BB17 being good was down to luck and casting anyway the production was far from perfect.

It wasn't good though. You just happened to find one or two housemates you liked.

No series on Channel 5 can be said to be good. The closest they came was probably the series with Dexter and Gina and that was awful. But it did at least look like it was Channel 5 trying to go in a better direction.

[Jordan.]

but it’s a bit expensive to play at 11 at the moment.

[hijaxers]

Endemol should take the franchise from Ch 5 they are unworthy - Especially Ben Bastard Frow he's a has been !

[Jason.]

Originally Posted by Yaki da

It wasn't good though. You just happened to find one or two housemates you liked.

No series on Channel 5 can be said to be good. The closest they came was probably the series with Dexter and Gina and that was awful. But it did at least look like it was Channel 5 trying to go in a better direction.

Well it was in my opinion. And it has nothing to do with the fact that I happened to like one or two housemates. I liked one or two people in BB12 yet that series is still one of my least favourites.

And I disagree with your second point. I think BB13 was a brilliant series and far superior to BB14 (which is beyond overrated). If people actually re-watched BB13 four years later in 2016, it would probably come across better than it did at the time unless you're easily offended. Most of the negative aspects of BB today started in BB14.

[Gusto Brunt]

What the fook is wrong with Ben Frow.

He does talk some idiotic crap. Amazes me how he's still in his job.

[Greg!]

I really don't like Ben frow. What other channel is so dismissive of their most popular programme I can't believe it. It's cute that he pretends people watch c5 for anything other than bb tho

[y.winter]

Ideally I'd have a good Big Brother.

[Babayaro.]

Delete it, bald