Big Brother Germany 2024

[Joel_1189]

One of the best things BBUK did when it launched was switch to weekly nominations and evictions and its no surprise most versions that launched after followed suit, though Germany stuck with the fortnightly cycle for their ever increasing seasons.

The thing is now Promi BB viewers are used to a daily cycle instead so given they've enough HMs to sustain weekly evictions over 100 days it is something they could have stuck with, although perhaps going back to basics means focusing more on the housemates just living with each other over the game aspect.

I've always said thought the social experiment gets more interesting as the numbers truly dwindle and would much rather see 4 HMs at the end than 8-10 (of the initial 17) in the final couple of weeks.

Speaking about changed the UK made to the format has reminded me of the following. Slightly off-topic, and I can't for the life of me remember where I read it (I'm talking probably 15 years ago now), but I remember Channel 4 originally planning to run Big Brother every other year (one year on, one year off), but then after the runaway success of the first series, they swiftly changed it to an annual event.

I wonder what Big Brother's timeline would have looked like in the UK if it was aired in such a way?

 

[kamui]

Thanks for that. Not a fan of producers deciding who nominates in the week and who does it live (I suspect they'll alternate it) but I've always thought just opening nominations soon after the eviction until the time they'd usually take place for HMs to go in and nominate when they wanted could be fun, especially if people nominate out of anger after an argument.

They do that in some Spanish-speaking countries like the Argentinian and Chilean version, but I think it originated in Spain. Once a week, one and only one housemate was able to nominate spontaneously and (in the current versions in Argentina and Chile) vote for 3 and 2 points instead of 2 and 1 point. In addition to that, every housemate can make one killer nomination during the season.

One of the best things BBUK did when it launched was switch to weekly nominations and evictions and its no surprise most versions that launched after followed suit, though Germany stuck with the fortnightly cycle for their ever increasing seasons.

Season 4 that introduced the battle concept was an exception. That one actually had weekly nominations and evictions. Some of the later seasons had weekly evictions when it got to the end game and they needed to get rid of people or when seasons failed and they wanted to swap out some housemates.

Season 5 went back to bi-weekly evictions, but I didn't like their approach to nominations and evictions either. Usually they only nominated within one team, so once you survived an eviction, you were safe for a couple of weeks before you eligible for nominations again. In the second half of the year-long season, they suddenly got rid of housemates nominations and either put whole teams or let the viewers do the nominations (and evictions).

Season 6 (the village one) was the worst though when it came to nominations, because they had nominations and evictions every 3 weeks. In the first week, housemates nominated to basically put people into the danger zone. Viewers didn't vote to evict, but decided which of the nominees was to face the newbie that moved in during week 2's live show. In the third week, viewers decided if the newbie or the nominee is allowed to stay. It was a horrible system and didn't last very long.

The thing is now Promi BB viewers are used to a daily cycle instead so given they've enough HMs to sustain weekly evictions over 100 days it is something they could have stuck with, although perhaps going back to basics means focusing more on the housemates just living with each other over the game aspect.

I'm very much for weekly evictions. I'm just surprised that they've switched to weekly evictions despite claiming that they'll stick to the biweekly cycle. It can see two reasons for that: People initially complained that they've put too many people into the house and that it's hard to get to know-all of them. Getting rid of them quickly helps with the problem.

But I also wouldn't be surprised if they just decided to do it in order to generate extra revenue. They love their phone votings and there has always been at least one premium vote in all seasons except for the first season. Some of the votes on last year's Promi Big Brother were a bit pointless and I don't see a lot of people participating in those (e.g. who should do the shopping).

Because that's what I think will be the most difficult thing for Joyn: To generate revenue. Even if people watch Big Brother on their platform, I don't think the ads in the 30-minute daily shows will be enough to pay for the season.

 

[Brekkie]

Speaking about changed the UK made to the format has reminded me of the following. Slightly off-topic, and I can't for the life of me remember where I read it (I'm talking probably 15 years ago now), but I remember Channel 4 originally planning to run Big Brother every other year (one year on, one year off), but then after the runaway success of the first series, they swiftly changed it to an annual event.

I wonder what Big Brother's timeline would have looked like in the UK if it was aired in such a way?

I don't think I've seen that rumour before but ultimately even if they get accused of milking a format it's better to have 10 series over 10 years than 20 years. Easier to maintain interest year to year than annually too.

Sometimes a break can help too.

 

[LaraBo]

I'm also not a fan of the new (?) process for nominations. For the second week, some of the housemates nominated at random times during the week with the rest nominating during the live show. But during the week, it's only one person (or for this week: one duo) nominating at a time and they have to reveal their nominations. And in the end, half of the house ends up being nominated...

The ideas for the nominations are great. That's by far the best of this BB. A housemate or two have to nominate an unnominated person and then tell the group their reasons. Or they say, they couldn't assert themselves and want to apologizes. Or say in one on one with their nominated housemate they didn't say their name, that was all the partner's work. And BB shows us the scene with the complete opposite.
With eight nominees the viewers can get rid of the hm they want to send home.

 

[kamui]

Well, last week's nominations worked since the (randomly selected) duos had to agree on a nomination. So you've got a bit of a debate out of the housemates, which you wouldn't see that often on the German Big Brother. That's something that I'm giving them, that worked out decently.

But you could do that without having face-to-face nominations, which they are basically doing even if they are called to the diary room first. And I would assume that more German fans would agree with you than me, because the German fanbase has some weird love for face-to-face nominations, which I don't understand. You sacrifice your format for short-term shock effect because it changes dynamics in the house. You might get away with it when you're doing it towards the end of the season, but doing it early on, it can kill your season long-term. Besides that, it's not the original Big Brother format, because it's not organic drama. It's manufactured drama (and imho not even huge drama).

Same with having half of the house up for eviction. I understand that German fans are happy to have it that way and again, I think that there would be quite a lot of people agreeing with you.. but it changes the format. It devalues nominations if half of the house ends up being nominated anyways and you can see that one the show as well. You have that 15 minutes or so when the nominated people sit in the "room of decisions" and wait for eviction. That's the time when people are worried about the eviction, but otherwise it's not creating any controversy or really pressure for the group.

For the last civilian season, they've done a lot of things where German people said that they should do it.. be it face-to-face nominations, be it the "hour of truth", when they should the bitching that happened behind people's back, or telling people how popular or unpopular they are, including comments sometimes. It changed the dynamics of that season and basically killed that season because people adjusted their behaviour accordingly.

 

[kamui]

This show became a mess over the last two weeks. Two weeks ago, they’ve continued with their concept of having nominations during the week except that it was a chain of safety nomination.

On last week’s show viewers were able to save one more housemate from eviction instead of evicting one of the non-safe ones. So they switched back to bi-weekly evictions.

Four people were up for eviction but two of them left on their own a day later or so. A third one wanted to leave as well but production was able to manipulate her into staying for the week. On yesterday’s show, that person was saved from eviction though and the other person got evicted. But the person that got saved decided to leave as well.

So they are down 4 housemates in one week. When they revealed the cast, they ruled out having any latecomers, so if they stick with what they’ve said, we’re definitely back to bi-weekly evictions. 11 housemates are left and the show should finish mid-June.

Despite their claims that they’re going back to basic, we won’t have another regular nomination this week. They’ve done an Easter egg hunt yesterday and the housemate that found the golden egg will decide nominations next week. Not sure if he’ll already make some nominations during the week.

Housemates also got punished for their rule breaking yesterday, so Big Brother removed all electronic devices from the kitchen (except for the fridge) and the washing machine. Personally, I think that’s another sign that they’re not so happy with how the show goes. Big Brother Germany never punishes housemates directly, they wait and then there is a group punishment… but that usually happens when viewers are upset and they need a talking point.

Ratings for the weekly live shows are terrible. Yesterday’s show only reached 300,000 people, its lowest reach ever across any channel that has ever shown Big Brother live shows.

Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but I have the feeling that they’ve stopped caring. Production hasn’t really been creative with anything this year, I kinda feel like they’ve been extremely lacklustre over the last couple of days, too. And Joyn hasn’t provided any press updates during the Easter weekend and they wouldn’t do a preview for the live show either.

 

[Brekkie]

I suspect three quitting will give them the excuse to put some new housemates in, especially if they need a ratings boost.

 

[Kingston]

This series seems to be pretty indicative of where the franchise is as a whole atm… A patchwork of ideas with no organized structure/formatting. Kind of ironic that the their willingness to allow the format to be adapted was what made it great also seems to be its downfall.

 

[Brekkie]

Is a certain irony that the never changing BBUSA seems to be the safest of the lot now. I think though I much prefer having the highs of BBUK in the noughties even if that means we've had some real lows since than decades of middle of the road mediocrity.

 

[Kingston]

Is a certain irony that the never changing BBUSA seems to be the safest of the lot now. I think though I much prefer having the highs of BBUK in the noughties even if that means we've had some real lows since than decades of middle of the road mediocrity.

I don’t understand why the road to mediocrity is what it is considering in its prime it was simplicity that had the biggest impact. The success of shows like The Traitors or The Circle are proof that a simple concept can still be interesting in the modern era.

 

[kamui]

This series seems to be pretty indicative of where the franchise is as a whole atm… A patchwork of ideas with no organized structure/formatting.

I think that patchwork of ideas has been an issue with the German Big Brother for a long time, even going back to the old RTL2 days. They've chased other shows than finding their own ground. When "helptainment" formats (or whatever they were called outside of Germany) were big, Big Brother Germany tried to be that as well and had coaches to train people to lose weight or to become more successful in their dating life. Add to that the increased pressure of falling ratings, which prompts them to make things up along the way hoping that they can stop the falling ratings.

I remember an interview during the second half of its initial run on RTL 2, when the producers touted that their version is so good, because they would use format points only for a week whereas others build a whole season on it and thus, they offer more variety. Variety/unpredictability is also the reason why they change the rules for nominations every week.

And now, they're paying the price for it.. I think even production isn't so sure anymore what Big Brother is about and what to do with it. Sat.1/Joyn don't care about the show either. I think for them, it's more a commercial task than a creative task. You don't need to make the best show, you just need to make a show that makes it across the finish line to secure another season.

And that might very well be reflective for BB around the world. ITV did Celebrity Big Brother because they knew it will give them good ratings for a couple of weeks despite them not knowing where they want to go with the show. Channel 7 wanted to have Survivor and Love Island and knew that they could stretch Big Brother to make it like that. Global knows that they can put a shit ton of sponsorships into the show, but doesn't have a vision for the show itself anymore.


Another thing that might play into it is that producers want to have more control over their shows than they used to have in the 90s/2000s. The German host of Let's Make a Deal used to be on Celebrity Big Brother in 2021, which then led to a revival of his show. But he was unhappy with the revival and rambled about how it's so overproduced and that he now has to follow a script instead of being spontaneous, filming gets interrupted all the time and stuff gets cut instead of letting the show just flow like in the 90s/early 00s. That's definitely true for Big Brother as well, hence why so many versions don't let viewers in on their plans anymore and in the worst case, like on C5's BBUK, they might need a day or two to figure out how they can retroactively change nominations. They don't trust their own show anymore.

 

[Craxus]

It was obvious that this season was gonna flop. Next live show will probably have 250k viewers. I'm really sad that this poor attempt at big brother is what has come of BB Germany. Barely anyone left in the house. Barely anything ever happens. I will be surprised if this show actually makes it to the finish line. If any other channel wants to try; Stop censoring. Several static cameras so the viewer can be the producer himself. More parties with enough alchohol and more challenges and competition. And endurance competions. They still do those in Brasil at least and I think they are the ultimate psychological trial.

 

[kamui]

Last week, one of the housemates was ejected because she "has violated fundamental interpersonal principles". They haven't provided further information. There was some speculation that she lashed out at production, but the host indicated that it was something involving her housemates. She wouldn't talk about it either.

Otherwise, the show continues to fall apart even further. Last week, they haven't had a weekly task. Production seemed to be absent, which led to speculation that the season might end earlier, but those didn't turn out to be true. Instead of a weekly task, they had a task during the live show. And at least on Monday's show, they haven't done any weekly recap and went straight to the daily show part.. so they might have accepted that they won't win over any new viewers. They've shown the best bits of the nominated housemates though.

I think the show lost all of the momentum it had. It's quite clear that production doesn't know what to do and where to go with the show. It's been a month now that we had something that at least resembled proper nominations.

 

[Brekkie]

We've seen this increasingly with versions around the world with housemates being removed without explanation and without footage bring shown, which goes against the principle of the show and usually has the opposite affect of protecting those involved as the rumours are oten much worse than the facts.

Production wise seems they've forgotten the basic principle of keeping it simple - whether weekly or fortnightly just sticking to the basic format would have given the show a chance.

 

[kamui]

A couple of updates:

Tonight they will indeed send in three new housemates. And starting in May, Sat.1 will no longer show the nomination/eviction shows live because the ratings have been so awful for them. They'll show a repeat of the show after midnight though, just before they repeat all the daily shows. The show will continue to air on Joyn, which insists that the show is doing well and doing better every week. Viewing time for the daily shows is up 9% compared to the launch week and premium users watch an average of 4 hours of live feed every day, an higher average than they had for Promi Big Brother.

They don't say how many people watch though and if they've gained any new viewers over the last 50 days. Or if it's just that the viewers that sticked with it, do enjoy it quite a bit. At the very least, Joyn's Top 10 rankings don't indicate any bigger movement. It usually ranks in 3rd place on the Top 10 list that the Joyn app displays (for non-premium users).. sometimes reaches 2nd place if they don't have any strong catch-up content on the platform.

 

[kamui]

Monday's live show was the first that aired online only and I guess they tried to get some people interested by having a celebrity visit (a former Promi Big Brother host). It was weird though because she's just been walking through the house and leaving some champagne while the housemates watched from a separate room. I wonder if that was a Covid thing.. still trying to minimise any risk for them.

Otherwise: There are now somewhat official ratings for the online show and they are dire. Last week, they've reached 170,000 people with all Big Brother content on their platform. I'd guess that BBBA had more visitors in a week when the Australian version was still on the air. But at the same time, the whole platform doesn't get used by a lot of people. The Voice Kids, which ranks third on Joyn, only reaches 80,000 people in a week. The only show that works considerably better with almost triple the reach of Big Brother is Germany's Next Topmodel.

So my guess is: if they're desperate to increase the relevancy of their platform, they might order a new season after all. But I don't expect them to make a profit from the series unless those 170,000 people watch the episodes over and over again.