[JohnnyBB]

Okay. What’s done is done. They aren’t going to change their mind now on this. So what’s next?

Let’s assume the Launch Night has the lowest audience ratings ever. A safe assumption, really, given that BB’s had declining figures for several years now.

Even if it doesn’t, it’s almost inevitable that the viewers will peel away during the ensuing nights as the show just doesn’t get talked about as much on the forums, papers and watercoolers throughout the weeks.

BB8 never really recovered from it’s All Women Start. No fit boys, no girls watch. Simple as, as the Zigster used to say. Without the wall to wall tv coverage, I can see the same thing happening here.

The first thing to note is that the show won’t actually seem all that different, early on. They stay up late anyway, the first week or so. Still, one thing BB will make sure of, is that they won’t all go to bed at midnight, like they did in BB4.

Hour after hour of HMs sleeping won’t pull in the punters. Further, the housemates will know. Some of them read the forums, and they’ll all know how the last CBB happened. There was no live feed there, either. Also, someone always gets ejected in the first fortnight: Shahbaz three years ago, Emily two years ago, and Alex last year. So there’s bound to be a Brand New Housemate.

He or she will know.

So the HMs will do their darndest to stay up. To compensate, and to make sure this happens, BB won’t wake them up at the crack at dawn. Those cockerel alarms sounding at 9 o’clock just won’t happen. They won’t be too obvious and let them sleep all day, of course, but shifting the wake-up time till eleven o’clock, say, will be the simple tactic.

What else? Well, the most obvious thing they’ll be able to do will that they’ll be able to fake it, more. It’s harder to fake it for 24 hours, but faking it for 6? Piece of cake. Which means more hyperactivity during the night, and more hyperactivity during the day time tasks. It also means they’ll be less inclined to slag one another off behind their backs during the night. Any sensible housemate wanting to win this thing will wait till 6.20 a.m before starting another Whisper Club.

Then there’s my worst fear – the Showmance. One of the few pleasures of BB8 was watching Ziggy fail to break up with Chanelle. So painfully self-aware was the poor sap that he just couldn’t bring himself to say the “It isn’t you it’s me” stuff until months into it, when any normal guy in normal circumstances would have said it weeks earlier.

But if all they have to do is kiss, cuddle, and then have a quick dive under the duvet, then they’ll all be at it like a bunch of rabbits. During the day they can keep their hands off each other, chat to the others. But once the clock nears midnight, they can start smooching all over again.

Last year was dreadful with the Jen’n’Dale show. We can expect plenty more of that this year. What will be even more frustrating, when Davina does the interview with a pained, tearful “Julie” about how sad it is she isn’t going to see “Jim” until he’s out of there, and how the whole nation fell for the lovebirds, and how sweet it is to see a real romance unlike the fakes of last year, and how please please please can I come to the wedding, the rest of us won’t really be sure of how much a stunt the whole damn thing was. Not that we care that much, but even so…

Then what? Best Case Scenario is that BB will bow to public indifference after a couple of weeks and quietly slip the odd hour in the afternoon into the E4 schedule. They must have that contingency in their planning. Mustn’t they?

Worst Case Scenario is that the viewers turn off in droves, newspaper coverage is muted and Channel 4 order Endemol to liven things up. Cue another House Next Door, more Brand New Housemates, more shock evictions, more fake evictions, more double evictions, more shock returns to the house. Like they’ve never done that before. Then, Very Worst Case Scenario, they decide to pull the plug. Which means we get even more episodes of Friends and ER. Yummy.

The irony of all this is that while the X Factor, Strictly Come Dancing, and Britain’s Got Talent get more coverage, and bigger audiences than ever before, the one reality show with year on year declining ratings is the first and, dare I say it, still the best of the lot.

Or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it will be packed with lively, witty, attractive people. Maybe we’ll get love and tears, and 13 weeks of entertainment. Maybe the lack of a live feed mean we’ll never get to predict what’s going to happen in the show itself. Maybe we’ll never know who’s up for eviction late on a Monday.

Maybe.
http://www.petitiononline.com/BB10/petition.html

source http://blogs.notw.co.uk/bb/2009/05/n...-play-out.html