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what would you change to get ratings back?

I think it all comes down to originality. None of the twists this year were original ideas, and none of them were shocking. In order to engage an audience you need to do something unexpected.
Another fundamental is getting the right cast. I know a lot of people seem to really like this year's cast, but I don't think it has been done well. As individuals, they should make for an interesting show, but the fact that so many of them are media trained, so many of them are uneducated, and so many of them represent the same level of society (whether we can admit it or not), is why the show isn't as good this year. Diversity isn't just found in age and race, the best sorts of diversity for a show that is based on a social experiment is to cast housemates who would not come across these types of people in everyday life. As far as I'm concerned, we need a better representation of regular Australian people - not just media trained wannabess. It just isn't the right formula.
 
So to cut a long story short - most daily show hours ever yet we know the least about the housemates compared to previous years. Also, does anyone else feel that the show has been going on for at least one month already? I can't believe we are only finishing the second week!
 
Depends on what demographic brings in more money. Bring back alcohol and show adult conversation. They are playing it like an episode of neighbours. Boring as shit. Political correctness has killed this TV show. Can't please us all I guess. Leave the family friendly crap to scripted TV and give us this one opportunity to look at ourselves. But Ch9 are a bunch of gutless wonders. The kids enjoy it guess. The best year was The one where Reggie won.
 
They need more adult conversation. Maybe the family dinners need to be about their opinions on interesting subjects rather than why a hm is being too nice or not opening up to the household??? Yes, give them a few drinks too, opens up the conversations and feelings. You need things to happen that get people talking the next day so it may encourage more viewers. It really feels like a kids show this year, it should be in the 6pm slot. I can't see parents wanting to sit down with the kids to watch the hm's milking a fake cow or playing cricket with the blondes cheer leading. I am a huge bb fan but, I can't believe I am saying this, am a tad bored so far this year. Maybe it's the split household makes it feel like less hm's. Has the feeling of towards the end of the series when the show quietens down but normally by then people have their favourites. I enjoy it when the large household splits into their groups and alliances are made, it is interesting to see who connects with who. By splitting the house bb is forcing friendships/rivals. I have not connected with anyone yet and don't really care who goes tonight, not sure who would bother voting as yet besides family and friends. The good thing about uplate was you could see normal flow of conversations and it did not need to be edited so severely in fear of kids watching. Anyway, something needs to be done to make it more interesting.
 
I haven't watched at all this year.

Why? Because with no Uncut, no Uplate and no Live Stream, the show has drifted too far from what it should be. I didn't have the stamina for it.

Not to mention that the advertising was terrible. "Big Brother's biggest twist!", "More housemates than ever!" and the same music-themed ads from last year? None of that was appealing and none of it made me want to watch.

Bring back Uncut and Uplate and then we'll talk. Until that time, I'm out for BBAU.
 
Halfway house is a terrible invention - you want the unpopular housemates mingling with the ones who voted for them! That creates the tension that makes it interesting, if you just put the popular ones on one side and annoying ones on the other side there wont be any hostility!
 
realityfan said:
Halfway house is a terrible invention - you want the unpopular housemates mingling with the ones who voted for them! That creates the tension that makes it interesting, if you just put the popular ones on one side and annoying ones on the other side there wont be any hostility!
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I can see your point. However if they separate the nominated housemates via the halfway house the chances of people being repetitively nominated decreases. Example now can you complain tim talks over you all the time if he isn't physically near you for a whole week? I'm sure some people will continue to nominate this way using the "threat to win" tactic but I can see how it would shake up nominations a little bit by getting them to think a little more out of the box.
 
SKOM said:
I can see your point. However if they separate the nominated housemates via the halfway house the chances of people being repetitively nominated decreases. Example now can you complain tim talks over you all the time if he isn't physically near you for a whole week? I'm sure some people will continue to nominate this way using the "threat to win" tactic but I can see how it would shake up nominations a little bit by getting them to think a little more out of the box.
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Yeah but that's kind of my point. To use your example, if you take Tim away because he's talking over the top of you and put him in another area, then doesn't it get a bit boring, wouldn't you prefer it if Tim was still in there face every day talking over the top of people and annoying them? If the same people get nominated every week then so be it.

Just my 2 cents... :-)
 
Alex/producers/posters - anyone arguing against streaming are talking utter bullshit.

I doubt they have any way of knowing numbers for many of the years the tech was total crap back then.
Some years were free, did they count those years?

The pay for it subscriptions if counted are mostly meaningless too, since advance techie posters kept finding ways to get streaming free.

And you simply cannot use the stats from then anyway, dial up shit for most of 10 years. And home viewers equipment/tech know how/everything is different now - fuck we could stream straight to our big fat TVs now.

And that is the real reason we don't have it - 9 are terrified of the viewers advanced technology.
 
kxk said:
Alex/producers/posters - anyone arguing against streaming are talking utter bullshit.

I doubt they have any way of knowing numbers for many of the years the tech was total crap back then.
Some years were free, did they count those years?

The pay for it subscriptions if counted are mostly meaningless too, since advance techie posters kept finding ways to get streaming free.

And you simply cannot use the stats from then anyway, dial up shit for most of 10 years. And home viewers equipment/tech know how/everything is different now - fuck we could stream straight to our big fat TVs now.

And that is the real reason we don't have it - 9 are terrified of the viewers advanced technology.
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Most likely live stream would not pay for The cost involved eg the bandwidth streaming would still have to be monitored and cut if something like the turkey slap incident happened
It would either be subscription based or have advertising inserted or BOTH the trouble would be that within a short time of it being streamed it would be available for free to download online stripped of the advertising
 
clb999 said:
They should realize that a lot of people r working longer hours atm and they r going to be competing against a lot of election crap over the next month or so, Uplate would be a good distraction and will expand the audience for the show
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Totally Agree! Come On Chan9 LISTEN TO US !!!
 
Last weekend, nostalgia got the better of me - I jumped on youtube and chain-watched the first week or so of BBUK 2001. It was my first experience with the show - and genre - and I loved every second of it. I was living "over there" at the time, and BB2 was just sensational, for me.

I tried to keep an open mind about why I loved it. Was it just nostalgia? Or, was there something about it? The casting? The edit? The "adult themes"?

The opening to the season was utterly non-flashy. No studio audience. No cheering. No ... um... buildup. I'd actually forgotten; but the 10 housemates that year (pre-Josh), literally walked up a path carting their suitcases out of anonymity, and into a big (bloody cavernous, actually) central room with obvious camera presence. Watching Bubble nervously bounce around the room waiting for someone; *anyone*, to join him was actually bloody riveting.

It was literally watching a caged lion at the zoo. Not "healthy", but not (arguably) harmful. It was a guilty pleasure.

The housemates weren't rock stars. And they weren't treated as rockstars. They pulled their own luggage up a path. They walked. They didn't have a glitz-and-glamour intro. For most; we got their backstory via a 2 minute in-the-back-of-a-London-taxi montage. And we hated Stuart on sight. Ponce.

That intro - basically; these are the people, this is the house. Then we saw them talking. A lot. To eachother. Not to Big Brother. It was like being in the room with them; the natter and chatter, the inane drowning out the serious topics - you had to strain to hear the "good" stuff; but that just kept you interested.

Big Brother was an authority figure. While I agree the current nod-as-good-as-a-wink BB has his charm; BB as an authority figure - someone the housemates were actually scared of (viz, Penny in the first shopping task) - is sadly lacking. Even early Aus BB had "Big Brother will get back to you". And then hours/days of indecision. And nerves. And double guessing.

Decisions now are instant - or edited to appear as such; barely a question without an answer; no tension. No fear. No consequence for asking. I mentioned Penny and the first shopping task in BBUK2 - watch it back; she's absolutely packing death that "the others" will attempt to interrupt her interaction with Big Brother; she's scared, not for herself, but for the group.

BB has taken the "Gen Z has the concentration span of a gnat" to heart; the tasks, the "entertainment factory".

The original BB concept was brilliant - take X number of people, whack them together and see what happened. Now, they're just puppets for entertainment. And, it's not actually entertaining past the red cordial inspired 30 second sugar-rush of watching Ben talk to his mum. Again.

I'll harp back to my early caged lion at the zoo analogy. Early BB was like going to the zoo. People in cages. Now, it's a circus. Like watching trained tigers jump through flaming hoops. Both have their audience; but they're different creatures, the zoo and the circus.
 
I think they need to ditch the family-friendly editing policies, Big Brother was never meant to be "family entertainment" (although it always was in my house :P) but rather a social experiment with ordinary unknown Australians from all walks of life (none of this semi-famous crap), complete with a dedicated live feed!

Something controversial needs to happen so everyone gets talking about it, like a punch up or something (but not as bad as a turkey slap though)

Today I compared an episode from 2007 off YouTube, then I watched the current series tonight on TV; I think you can guess which one I liked better :P

Channel 10 did it better.

/rant over, sorry for rambling :|
 
Finally have the tech to stream good and they don't. We are missing out on the little things that make it the voyeuristic reason the whole concept was originally conceived. It's an edited watered down soap now. Subscription Foxtel for adults and ch9 for the kids and wowsers. Kids are watching all kinds of poo eating crap on the net these days, I'm sure Caleb and Matt turkey slapping Tully on her buck teeth won't scar them for life
 
In what other show do we have the opportunity to see people just being people? That's where the current BB sadly misses the point.
 
The problem is the things that are likely to increase ratings are precisely the things most of the people here hate about what the show has increasingly become - making it sanitized instead of raw, staged rather than chaotically spontaneous, having lots of 'challenges' and a heavy imposed narrative with easy-to-relate-to stereotypes - The Block without the renovations, My Kitchen Rules without the cooking, The Amazing Race without the race. That's what people want to watch.

Just wait til they start adding talking head inserts to reinforce the narrative. Do you think they haven't thought about it?
 
Really really hate this years editing. It bothers that Ben got nominated by most HMs due to him being particularly 'quiet' and 'playing under the radar' during the week yet our screen is filled with Ben Ben and Ben because the producer thinks he look geeky and 'adorable'.

I know that some HM maybe boring, but the proportion of each HMs screen times is utterly ridculous. Sharon has been in the house for two weeks and we know nothing about her.

Nine wont have live feed because it will make them somewhat accountable for the quality of the daily shows as subscribers to the feed will voice their anger if a major event is not shown. It will also make it harder for producer to create a teen love triangle story within the house etc.
 
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