what would you change to get ratings back?

[Brekkie]

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.

And Marcus wasn't as Geordie back then. I rewatched a bit of the very first BBUK series a few months ago and actually BB didn't even speak to the HMs on the first day - just played a backseat as the housemates did their own thing. Watched bits and pieces of the early Aus series too and the daily shows just feel so much more natural, rather than structured around a couple of issues or tasks as they are nowadays.

 

[bringbackgretel]

I really hope someone from Southern Star reads my comment and passes it up the chain - if they care about the future of BB - and their own jobs.

WTF is happening with BB this year?
I agree with everything on the latest post on this site.

I have followed BB intently right from 2001 until present and this year I have been tuning out without giving it a second thought.

* Live Nominations - edited to the point where I lose interest
* Time Slots are soooooo confusing and I can't be bothered trying to figure out how long an episode goes for or what the start time is.
* Everything is edited and is causing me to switch to Channel 7 which has more compelling/addicted TV viewing material aka X-FACTOR (talent)
* Sonia Kruger is getting on my nerves by putting the microphone up to her nose which drives me crazy. Can't she learn to use a headset?
* Sonia Kruger is not at all witty, well at least not compared to Gretel's standards. Her "lazy" left hand also annoys me. Boot HER off.

So, to conclude, BB needs to make more LIVE footage in nominations and Showdown, daily show footage, keep everyone up to date more often and create a UP LATE show.
They have the time slot at that hour of the night to replace home shopping rubbish TV.

I predict the ratings will not just fall but tumble in coming weeks. No Sunday show is too much of a gap from family viewing time enough to alienate and abandon the audience coupled by a confusing time slot schedule.

Seriously BB...listen to me and action this or sadly for you this viewers will dip further which will anger your sponsors and Channel 9 association.

Time will tell...

Listen to the fans or lose the fans...

 

[kxk]

9 you fools.
You have stumbled on a great cast in general, some really interesting and entertaining HMs.
Last night they got to star - their nominations were superb, most entertaining I think I have ever witnessed.

Let this great cast be, it's so simple. JUST PULL BACK, stop all the wizzy bang bang bulllshit gameshow crap.
Just let them be, and stand back and watch - that is all we need. Fools, fools, fools - thank the lord we have Tim not listening to your shit directions

 

[kenn]

to me all we need is no. 9 and 10, so that we can get to know to guys and girls in the house without all that editing.

 

[sav0001]

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?

If they wanted to watch what Nine is offering now, the ratings wouldn't have gone down so much from launch and people wouldn't be complaining as much as they are both here and on Facebook.

 

[SnideAsides]

Agreed with everything said so far. I rewatched a week of BB02 recently (the infamous international task catastrofail and double eviction, if you're playing along), and even though it still isn't one of my favourite seasons, thanks mostly to how much they shoved Marty/Jess and the intruders down our throat, it was a damn sight better than anything we've gotten on Nine.

And the nominations! It was brilliant being reminded that players knew their nomination order and would wait at the Diary Room door so they could go in one after the other, with Gretel only speaking on the way in and out of commercials. So much less tedious than "Sonia lame pun, nomination, BB joke, other nomination, other BB joke, Sonia lame pun, repeat" fifteen times.

Sidenote: I'd completely forgotten Peter existed, and yet he's so much better than the current meatheads it's infuriating. It's not just that Australia used to keep picking the bulky guys as the winners, but it's that they were better people than the sort we get now.

 

[rachael92]

BB this year is annoying me but I can't just stop watching
'Live' shows are not live and also called live because Sonia is there.
Showing 3 days' worth of daily shows on Monday before the eviction is ridiculous. (Those shows could have effected voting if showed earlier)

Seriously channel nine is screwing it up...like evictions on Mondays and nominations on Tuesday....are you serious?

 

[robdido]

Hack the site and publish the entire footage uncut on wiki leaks. All that footage gone to waste. I'm sure when HM get out they will be thimking, damn is that all you showed of me! 2013 and they can't figure out how to get a live stream to work

 

[robdido]

Sack Ch9 all together, piss the cameras off and give each HM Google Glass then setup a hangout and you can tune in to whoever you like. Also piss off the prize and nominations. 2 months of pure unadulterated voyeuristc heaven!

 

[Goon]

So with all the changes taking place

The Wall Coming down
Showdown on Thursday
Late Night Feast

Are users more happy with this. Do you feel this will improve the ratings ??

As I have said that Alex and Ch 9 do read these forums 24/7.

 

[bleachy_dude]

So with all the changes taking place

The Wall Coming down
Showdown on Thursday
Late Night Feast

Are users more happy with this. Do you feel this will improve the ratings ??

As I have said that Alex and Ch 9 do read these forums 24/7.

I'm sure Alex loves BB as much as we do. He wants to ensure its future. Good moves.

 

[machete]

So with all the changes taking place

The Wall Coming down
Showdown on Thursday
Late Night Feast

Are users more happy with this. Do you feel this will improve the ratings ??

As I have said that Alex and Ch 9 do read these forums 24/7.

Brilliant!! I hope BBB and this thread helped voice the BB fans on what they wanted! Very exciting!

 

[robdido]

Struggling to remain loyal. Limited footage, dodgy website. I really have no idea who these charachters are in the house.

Why am I reading a live feed blog about a television show that has 100 cameras running 24/7 and I still don't know much what's happening. It's like that feeling of listening to the footy on the radio because your at work and the boss won't let you turn on the telly

Unless these guys are so boring then that is all there is. I doubt it. All to do with politically correct bullshit Aussie values. Let them smoke a cigarette, let them discuss taboo topics, get drunk and have fun. This isn't communist china

If your not going to show true human drama then why bother. Most people would have given up by now.

 

[bazooka]

agree with the majority of posts in this thread, the obvious selection from the list is 9, 10.
guessing someone from CH9 checks out this thread.

The show smells like teen soap competing against H&A, CH9 haven't done themselves any favors in destroying the original concept.
few examples that galvanize those thoughts.

Stop staging scenes into the show:

day 19 has a good example of why viewers assume the show is far from reality.
The scene was Drews female dilemma, the scene looked as if it could be a natural conversation between Drew/Tulley, that led to an ambi pur plug.
Drew: "if you could buy a can of affection in here, that's kind of what it is"
Tulley: "it's like ambi pur for affection affection"
seriously! Can of affection, who scripted that?
it's bleedin obvious that the whole scene had been staged in such a way as to plug the product.
though the previous ambi pur plug, "Tim farting" was much more obvious !

Stop editing audio into other scenes:

e.g. day 18 towards the end when Drew was massaging Jade.
jade thanks Drew, jades comment was edited into another scene making it look as if Caleb turned towards their direction upon hearing her, and looked surprised.
what gave it away was that drew was dressed while massaging Jade, then appears standing shirtless in the mirror behind Caleb.
save the true Risque footage for the late nite shows, instead of poorly editing audio into another shot to create an alternate scene suitable for family viewing.

get rid of the sound effects during boring uneventful scenes, it's not AFHVideos.

these oddities lead to obvious questions,
is the show partially scripted ?
have the HM's been assigned certain character roles, with some freedom to improvise?

how can anyone in charge of BB think that viewers would be fooled into believing the show still maintains it's original basic concept when it oozes the classic teen soap type scenarios.

have been a BB fan right from the start.
This season is absolutely appalling, won't be posting about the HM dynamics, due to believing it's fake.
3 weeks in and we still don't know much about them.

Me thinks the big twist is that we have been fooled into believing it's reality TV.

no wonder there's no live feed, it would give it away.

wouldn't be difficult to revert the show back to reality
Simply air a 2 hr shock exclusive episode that exposes that the big twist was on us due to the HM's playing roles.
wouldn't be difficult to fill a few hrs with HM's giving details about the setup-their roles e.t.c.
would be an interesting twist if true, watching the HM's revert back to their true natural selves and finally getting to know them over the coming weeks.

 

[Cyclone82]

Please fix the website. So many of the videos DO NOT match the live feed story descriptions at all!

 

[Ayr]

There's been a subtle shift in the "family-friendly" ethos this week. Case in point is Mikayla - shots during the week of her bawling in her undies after realising that she's put on weight after a couple of weeks of lifestyle change; in the first week we didn't see so much as a bra strap, let alone Tully's almost side-boob; and a chick in knickers? Get outta the house...

All completely within the standards for pre-watershed content; just with less icecream shops, and more emotion.

Good thinking, team. Tititate, without becoming overt.

 

[torifrog]

Alex just needs to watch the first 3 seasons. REAL people without media connections for the most part and actually challenging tasks that put them under pressure. That's really all I want. I want to watch the sociological experiment, not people kissing, doimg weights and talking about couples, sex etc ad nauseam.

 

[Ayr]

Good thoughts on the tasks, Torifrog; but, what constitutes a task that puts them under pressure? Something involving sleep deprivation; monster trucks (random!); food deprivation (oh wait, they failed the food task this week -- nada on the ramification front other than Tim noting that the fridge was "kinda empty"?)

Unless the contracts say "Must be provided with a minimum of the Australian average of 8700 kj a day"; then ... sky's the limit. Are they people, entertainers, cast, friends, or .. contestants. Hell; take a peek at something like "Get me out of here...." from the UK; where's the witchety grubs, the slime? An icecream shop... An awkward cricket cross-promotion. That's what we get for our 8 cents a da... oh wait; commercial TV, sorry! Not the ABC!

Though, I do agree; the whole "My friend saw you looking at his friend, so you must be a couple thing"; yeah, got over than in first year Uni.

 

[bleachy_dude]

Alex just needs to watch the first 3 seasons. REAL people without media connections for the most part and actually challenging tasks that put them under pressure. That's really all I want. I want to watch the sociological experiment, not people kissing, doimg weights and talking about couples, sex etc ad nauseam.

He knows season two and three well, he was on production staff!

 

[Tim]

He knows season two and three well, he was on production staff!

You have to wonder how much freedom he actually has with the format though. There could be a board room full of boring Channel 9 suits telling him to keep it a high school soap opera.

Or he could just be living vicariously through all of it. Remember when "sexy" shirtless photos of him were leaked onto these forums. I think we have them stickied in the moderators forum, ha ha.