Category: Blog

I’m talking about flashing of course!

Break flashing to be exact.

On the day it was confirmed Big Brother UK would return for it’s eighth summer series on Wednesday 30th May, Channel 4 launched this years promo campaign.

No empty promises… no meaningless slogan… and definitely no staged press conferences…

Just a split-second glimpse of the Big Brother 8 logo, appearing randomly during the odd-commercial break throughout the evening.

It works though – BBUK forums were buzzing with excitement the second the logo appeared, though the race to get the video online first was won by Being Big Brother, the official UK partner of Behind Big Brother. I’ll be pointing you in that direction a number of times over the next three months.

The full promo campaign will be slowly unveiled over the next week or so with the housemates already in lockdown, but we can expect a 10-day countdown from Sunday and our first glimpse at the new house from next week – while it’s likely that as usual, there will be another strand to the promotion campaign – but what form that takes varies from year to year – so we’ll just have to wait and see.

More news soon, but meanwhile keep up to date with all the pre-season developments in the International Forum.

And finally, a quick word about Big Brother Australia…

“shit”

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UPDATE: The next stage of the promo campaign has begun with the “countdown” ads, with our UK sister-site Being Big Brother setting up a YouTube account with all the promos so far.

We’re three weeks into the show and I finally have a moment to actually sit down and blog about the show. This is my first blog entry for 2007, but you may have found me spilling my guts in our BBBA podcasts over the last few weeks.

I don’t think I’m making a huge sweeping generalisation when I say interest in this season has been diminished. Ratings are down, and the general consensus on the forums is that this season is just not engaging enough. But so far we’ve had lots of in-house fights, behind the back bitching and plenty of joking around. This is supposed to be entertaining footage right?

A lot of the time people assume I’m 100% against Big Brother because this site is constantly criticising the show. This isn’t true – right now I am fully addicted to watching the daily show. I think its great viewing. So what if Adults Only is canceled? I never watched it anyway, there is only so much you can bare about people talking about their penises. And shower scenes? Well you can see more hardcore pornography on the internet for free. No adults only doesn’t mean the death of the show.

What I think IS killing the show is the constant, unnecessary and baffling interfering of the house and the natural flow of the show by ridiculous “twists” and specials shows. It’s getting out of hand. Really we are three weeks into the show but how well do you know the housemates? They are still relative strangers to me because we just haven’t had enough time to take a step back and watch what is going on.

I don’t understand why the producers won’t give us some breathing time – they are so preoccupied with throwing twists into the house, introducing new people and promoting flashy gimmicks (Golden Key URGH) they’re starting to beat the dead horse that is Big Brother. The housemates are not boring, but people are tuning away because they haven’t been given a chance to actually learn and connect with the people they see on their television screen. Have we even had a week of “normal” Big Brother yet? What happens when the producers use up all of their twists by week 5? And now there is word MORE intruders will be put in to combat failing ratings. Give me a break.. please…!

If its a matter of filling up their required Australian television content levels then whats the problem in extending the daily show? Extend it to an hour and you have immediately doubled your Australian content. Either way, we need to see more of what is actually happening in the house, and not these prescripted, predictable lame excuses for television. STOP INTERFERING AND JUST LET THE HOUSE RUN ITSELF FOR A BIT. Producers don’t you realise Big Brother is supposed to be unscripted reality? Or are you scared things will slip out of your control? If so, then maybe you shouldn’t be involved with a reality television show because right now with every lame twist you pull its another nail in the BBAU coffin. I shudder to think you think this is actually good quality television – ITS NOT, and I’m not the only person who thinks so.

Or is this just for money? The Golden Key show was basically a one hour ad for a lolly company. Kris Noble and Tim Toni, if you prioritise your sponsors over your viewers, they will tune out and take those sponsors with them. The falling ratings are proof.

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Gah.. with that rant out of the way I would like to make one last complaint about the blatant position towards voting. Why is Big Brother, Gretel Killeen, and Lil Sis telling us how to vote? It’s utterly unproffesional they are trying to sway something that is the public vote.

“Keep the interesting housemates in” translates to the production team scared the HMs who pull in the ratings will be kicked out. Well thats their problem. If all the interesting housemates are voted out they only have themselves to blame. They should have picked ALL interesting housemates from the beginning. Kris Noble you’ve been running this show for 4 years now – you know how these things work so why do you make the same mistakes over and over?

Frankly I feel insulted that the BB production tries to passive-agressively blameshift the fact a show is boring on the viewers. There is a reason why people vote out the interesting ones – because they are the ones who they get the most emotional with. Viewers should be able to choose who they want to vote out without being labeled the reason a show becomes boring. If producers chose all interesting people from the begining there would be no problem!

Terms like “under the radar” wouldn’t exist if the producers actually thought about a little planning and proper housemate recruitment.

The eighth series of BBUK is just a few weeks away there is one rumour that just won’t go away – Big Brother: The Battle.

We’ve gone over the arguments regarding Big Brother Australia borrowing ideas from around the world many many times before – and I’ve made my feelings clear that it’s not so much that they steal the ideas, but that they don’t do them justice that is the issue – along with the lack of their own original ideas in recent years too.

However, I’ve no problem with BBUK taking up the Battle idea – firstly because I am confident the producers will do it justice and incorporate their own original interpretations, and secondly because with BBUK it’s not all take, take, take.

HISTORY LESSON

For most countries, beginning with the Netherlands, “The Battle” was the first major twist to the Big Brother format. To put it simple, the idea is the house is divided into Rich and Poor, with a weekly challenge determining who lives where. How it is done varies from country to country – BBUK implemented the rich-poor divide in BB3 – but with it being the shows first major twist they took a rather cautious approach and never took the opportunity to develop it further.

Although the idea may divide the viewers as much as the housemates, the ratings don’t lie – BB3 is by far the highest rated BBUK series, with an average of nearly 6m viewers compared to around 4.5m for other series – surely the credit for that can’t be solely down to Jade and co.

WE’RE READY FOR BATTLE

Five years on and Big Brother UK has changed dramatically – and now “The Battle” is a format we could do justice. The evil chapter has now more than reached it’s conclusion and after a few years of shows based on a series of themed (or not so themed) twists, Big Brother 8 needs a new approach – and part of that is making changes that affect the series as a whole, rather than just a few days every few weeks.

This time around it’s likely the twist would play a much bigger role, with bigger challenges, bigger extremes and bigger consequences – with perhaps nominations and even the prize fund affected by the outcome of the weekly “Battle”.

Overhead shots of the house clearly show the garden divided into two – and the rumours suggest the extremes will be greater, with more luxuries for the rich housemates – and less necessities for the poor housemates.

However, there is just one thing making it unlikely Big Brother: The Battle will ever be more than just a rumour here in the UK – the fact it’s rumoured in the first place!

More BBUK news and rumours in the International Forum, with a full round up of the main rumours so far here.

Thanks to Channel 4, Stewart249, Inside Big Brother and BBSpy.

USE THE GOD DAMN PHONE!

Why show us on the launch show that there is a telephone in the house if you are not going to use it? Is it there for ratings sake incase Big Brother gets boring and repetitive on day 43?

Not only that, there is no mention on the OS about the phone, nor do you ever see it on the daily show or anything, its like a steak knife holder in the kitchen, you show us the pretty design of the thing and then it just sits there and collects dust.

Another thing, where is the punishment room? Or do we only get to see people seperating white and brown rice once it gets to the point where you can save money through fines?

And how about the washing machine with the bikes? We haven’t seen them yet, and i bet housemates have done their washing, unless they are trying to be Jamie from last year who managed to never wash, but still won.

On other news, I think our radio shows are going pretty good. Although I’ve been on once and was erm nervous, but over time it should get even better. One thing I must say though, is that please, if you call up and leave a voice mail, turn your computer speakers down so we don’t hear it in the background, otherwise its very hard to hear it. And we also accept voice mails and emails from banned forum members!

All voice mails and emails may be either called through or emailed through any time during the week.

Yeah that’s right, Haydrew. In case you aren’t a bb forumer or a thirteen year old girl, Haydrew is short for Hayley and Andrew, our least favourite house couple. And I’m pretty sure I made it up, no one else has said it, there’s been “Bo-j” but no Haydrew, so I coined it.

Anyway, moving on

After watching that nominations chat in the rewards room last night and hearing the repetitive bullcrap from hayley about bodie getting closer to tj to save himself from nomination, do you think it’s pretty safe to say that hayley and andrew are the biggest game players in the house?

Let us begin with me telling you what I think about Andrew and Hayley:

I HATE BOTH OF THEM

Andrew is the kind of guy I don’t get along with. He’s too good at keeping to himself and taking in what everyone else says. He would have made a good policeman if he stuck with it, but a good housemate? no thanks. He’s the guy that causes those “How did they know I said that?” moments. He seems cool because he will sit quietly in a room with you without emotion as you have a conversation, so you feel free to talk about anything or anything. But later that night! he will recount the entire conversation complete with opinions to his gf, his gf will tell all of her girlfriends, and by the end of the night every man and his dog knows that you did Sharons sister over a washing machine at big swishies Laundromat.

Hayley is the kind of girl that I would also avoid, and is much easier to describe than andrew. An emotional train wreck with a law degree, rofl. Pity the fool who marries (and divorces) that woman, lol.

Now that we have that out of the way and the biased nature of this blog is clear, lets talk about the game playing:

For starters they deceived “the majority” of the house in the first week by remaining separate from each other and actively flirting with people in the house to throw people off the scent. Hayley even when as far as tearing Thomas apart for flirting with her if it wasn’t going to go anywhere.

More recently (post Bodie fight) Hayley keeps harping on about people projecting their own insecurities, this is super funny and ironic because that is exactly what she is doing, LOL, she completely broke down when she was casually labelled a game player by Bodie AND she takes every opportunity she has to point out that someone else is disingenuous or “playing the game.” lollercoaster

Oh god, and what about friday. It was obvious from the very beginning that fnl was going to be the Haydrew show. The separated group nature of Japanese night gave them the opportunity to remain in the game as long as possible by strategically positioning themselves far apart throughout the competition. And the final straw… Andrew half assed the prawn thing. He is an athletic man and could have moved a lot faster. Further proof to me that he half assed it is the fact that I know I would have done the same thing if I was in his position.

This is why:

a) Bodie was in his grouping. Bodie has the athletic side of things completely wrapped up, he is a fierce competitor and would make the last few games very difficult to win if they were athletic in nature.

b) If I made my team get a shitty score it means my gf will move into the last few challenges. And I’m pretty certain that my body building, ex lawyer girlfriend could out do a couple of slappers and an uncoordinated Mormon in the final few challenges.

So there we have it. Haydrew are the biggest game players in the house, and if you ask me, they need to go. Hayley is without a doubt the strongest female competitor when it comes to fnl and Andrew is in the top three when it comes to male competitors. Those are good odds for a Haydrew fnl clean sweep.

The last thing we need is another “Logans.” You know how it happened, the team factor gave them an advantage and they cleaned up. At least the Logans acted as individuals in the house though (once they were discovered,) imagine what it will be like with the newer, stronger, more boring set of Logans :( who cuddle and cry together NOOOOOOOOO PLEASE MAKE IT STOP no one wants to see an established couple taking over the house, blossoming young love is one thing, the win hungry late twenties career couple (with the fun year behind them, lol) is another.

Love,

Rilly

Just a quickie…

The one thing we got out of that stupid BBLS streaming article the other day was the fact that this year BB is considering the live stream (and pretty much the whole OS) to be rated “M”. The defamation thing I accept, obviously they have to protect themselves legally. But what I have issue with is this:

“The reason the stream goes to no audio or the vision gets cut is based on the fact that we are obliged to monitor it to TV standards – M classification!”

What the hell do you mean, ‘obliged to monitor it to TV standards’? No you’re not! Obviously it’s so that they can claim innocence if we get a repeat of last year’s political bullsh*t, but it just pisses me off. Why not revert to the MA rating they gave themselves last year, and just make sure someone’s always keeping an eye on the feed so they don’t broadcast any more turkey slaps? I don’t watch the streams for the nudity or whatever, so I don’t care about that, but when the feed cuts get in the way of an interesting conversation it upsets me.

At least there’s a way to get around the audio cuts – I think I’m going to learn to lip read.