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Why Big Brother is fast becoming a paradox on Nine

No Live feeds? The whole point is we're supposed to be able to watch 24/7. Is Nine afraid of its own TV show?

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Fans of Big Brother are pleading with Nine to offer Live Feeds online from the House.

Social media forums have lit up with requests for the live feeds since the show began, but Nine is refusing to budge.

Having one hour edited episodes on TV is proving too limited for dedicated fans and Nine is at risk of alienating the core audience it needs to support the show.

Instead it is offering a lightweight Twitter feed with such dazzling updates as:

18:49: Estelle says, “I’m falling asleep right now” to Josh. But they both still find the energy to schmooze some more…

20:48: “It’s been a hard day for me” Stacey continues. “Awww, why?” Angie asks. “I’ve just been so slugging” Stacey responds.

22:03: “You were bowling that quick today” Ryan says, complimenting Josh on his bowling during the cricket game.

23:13: The HMs are separated; girls in the Parlour and boys in the Kitchen. What are they talking about? Stay tuned, that is all for tonight.

Rivetting stuff.

Nine’s dilemma is that it is terrified live feeds to the House would undermine its “family friendly” season, because viewers would access more adult conversations and behaviour. If the show is written off as another year of boozy, randy housemates, Nine won’t enjoy any longevity with the brand.

Yet the decision to limit access is a paradox to the entire mantra of Big Brother.

The whole point of the show, indeed the title spells it out, is that we are watching people under the microscope.

We’re not supposed to be watching 42 edited minutes.

The Daily Show should be a catch-up summary for a broad audience. The fans should be having around the clock access to this most social of experiments.

Not having a full Daily Show until Wednesday has also impacted on our ability to see relationships forming at a crucial stage. Ratings are already slipping.

Ironically, we had online access ten years ago when we were all on dial-up. Now with high-speed broadband in most homes, and NBN rolling out across the country, we’ve actually gone backwards.

Nine should at least meet the fans half-way by adding an UpLate show with Mike Goldman, pronto.

I’m beginning to wonder if Nine is afraid of the very brand it has acquired….

54 Responses

  2. They should at least bring back! UpLate! and Friday Night Games and aren’t they also Family Friendly Shows, I thought so?

    And why can’t they at least do live streaming for a shorter time like For Example’ start the live streaming from say 12pm to 6pm? I don’t think any one thought of that one including you Nine. C’mon Nine bring back the shows I mentioned and then everyone would be Happy!! Even you Nine when you find out the Ratings will go up because of those Shows you brought Back!!

  3. Well didn’t it start shooting before the Olympics Coverage and during it as it would take a lot out of sonia to fly up from sydney every night to the Gold Coast, so it wouldn’t be worth playing the stream on a delay as that would take up resources on there network

  4. I’m finding this season extremely boring. Always took a while to connect with the house mates in the past – Usually it takes a little while for their true self to come out – But I’m just not clicking at all so far

  5. Nine will never allow streaming. Without it the turkey slap incident would never have happened along with the murder trial law issue or the nail polish sniffing..and streaming makes the daily show redundant due to the time shift nature of daily show content.

  6. Online feeds, digital TV and Big Brother is a match made in heaven. What an absolute wasted opportunity. Nine needs to act now, not next week. Work around the clock to get this thing going properly or this show is gone. If you want a family friendly show you should of brought back A Country Practice, not BB.

  7. I used to love the live feeds when BB was on Ten. I didn’t even mind having to pay for it. Having to use a credit card also ensured “family friendly” kids didn’t have access to watch it.
    There used to always obviously be a Producer sitting there watching it be fed out to the net as occasionally the feed would be cut and a graphic put up if the housemates started talking about something they didn’t want us to see or slanderous etc. I’d still be happy with that if 9 would give the viewers back the live feed and still more than happy to pay for it.
    We just need more access to the show to feel connected to it. At the moment as a viewer you aren’t given any ownership of it.

  10. Hi david this is a personal update for you. You dont need to show this comment but if you do that be also fantastic.
    –

    I was just checking the channel 9 whats on tv for next week timeslot. Found that this Wednesday 22nd comming up there is (22:10pm Big Brother: Confidential) and looks like it will run for until 1110pm or later. Along with the usual 7pm big brother daily show as normal.

    Thats pretty much i know as of next week whats on tv on channel 9. This Big brother: confidential. Indicates something to do about past week/uplate segments and other controversals.

    Anyways hope ive helped you something new to know there david.

  11. Day1 we all thought channel 9 was giving us treats with a webcam(s) on the official website. But no it didn’t then we thought maybe ones the all 14housemates are in the bb house the cams should be up. But it never did. its a week past gone.

    Very disapointed with no webcams to watch. And the updates are very slack.. And only update when the producers feels like it.

    Ask yourself.. Why are they filming the big brother housemates 24/7 AND yet at the very same time No one is watching it… but only 4 or 5 people in a small bb studio flicking buttons. Why bother film the bb house if no one is watching. Thats the point.. why film when no one is watching unless the people in the studio are all for themselfs only VIPS…. Seriously disapointed. And also notices there is far too much editing on the big brother show daily. Too much editing.

    I yet don’t fully regonise the big brother house correctly in full view. Theres so much there to view but we havn’t seen it yet because they only care to show housemates faces up close. So believe it or not i dont no where the bedrooms are located in the bb house or where the living room is located. I yet have not seen why there is no footage where hosuemates are taking a shower ? Where is the toilet door ? where is the living room ? all ive seen is just the backyard corner right on the corner with seating soft couches. thats all ive seen. There is a gym area. I havn’t seen it yet on the bb show. But the housemates sees it and can use the gym area. We yet dont even regonise where the gym area is in the backyard. This is how bad all this edting has came up with. Hope that there will be uplate and webcams when it hits to day 84. I think bb show starts with day 100. finger cross.

  12. Needs up late at least.

    I just have the desire conditioned from past seasons to turn on uplate or the feed. To get more and I can’t.

    It’s a real shame they don’t have it. Especially in 2012.

    Part of what made the idea of BB coming back is that they used to have a lot of hours of programming. With digital channels it seemed even more so they’d do this. When in fact there’s less.

    Like why not have uplate starting at 9pm on GEM and going until they fall asleep. It’d be after the watershed. It’d be fine.

  13. Nine never really believed in Big Brother. They offered $40million to poach it from TEN during the second last season to get a share of the huge payments the then Qld Govt was paying to keep the BB house on the GC because it had become a major tourist attraction. TEN exercised their right of refusal and kept BB going for another season.

    Nine has brought back BB because Excess Baggage failed. Simple as that. But BB is a multifaceted show which has different platforms which forms the whole product. BB Uncut, Up Late and online streaming appeal to an adult and edgy young audience which embraced the show and was chiefly responsible for its success.

    It is significant that when the News Ltd tabloids whipped up a phoney scandal about the “smut” on Uncut which forced the axing of that element, ratings for BB went down.

    For Nine in the pre-publicity to trumpet that their version would be “family friendly” was the kiss of death. To the intended young demo “family friendly” means boring. The old BB fans were dismayed as well.

    The only thing Nine can do now is to do a complete makeover and revamp of the show. Shift it to Go! to attract the younger demo, bring back Uncut and Up Late and also live online streaming. It is clear that running it on the main channel and trying to keep up this ridiculous “family friendly” facade has been a disaster.

  15. Big Brother is not a show you can go half-arsed with, and yet Nine are trying. Ten’s Up Late and Uncut shows often gave an entirely different side to the contestants. Unlike other reality shows, the entire point of BB is the public picking their favourite based on their personalities and actions, but not being able to see any more than Nine wants us to makes it all rather false.

  16. The question was never if Nine would find a way of stuffing this up it was always going to be how.
    Anyone one thinking otherwise would be as delusional as someone assuming 47 year old women can just go and have a baby without outside assistance.

  18. Have loved BB from the beginning, so glad it’s back, now I’m worried that this series will be the last we’ll see of BB for another few years!!
    Daily shows feel pretty on par with what I’m used to from previous years but with no uplate/live feed I’m not feeling like I’m being fed a version of who the HMs are.
    Confidential has big shoes to fill on wednesday, hopefully has more ‘adult’ content etc.
    Also, I can’t believe that the live updates section is so vague all the time, sharing mere snippets of conversations making it near impossible to work out what hms are even talking about from the quotes shared! The live updates section was more comprehensive even when there was live feed!!
    Nine need to man up and take some risks!

  20. it is simple, without streaming, up-late and uncut BB will fail. which is unfortunate cause i love it.

    started to watch BBcelebrity UK yesterday-brilliant

  21. steve sydney touches on a point that really encapsulates everything that bothers me about commercial television. Nine are so scared of BB being perceived as anything but “family friendly” (ie no nudity, no sex scandals etc) but show the ads for the violence-glorification fest that is Underbelly constantly during timeslots when kids are still up. Yeah, really family friendly. Why, why, why is violence acceptable in our society but sex is not? Very strange. Results in very weird and twisted attitudes towards sex I think. We should be looking towards the Europeans rather than Americans for our morals in that regard I think.

  22. I must be the only one who lives in a capital city and is unable to get high speed broadband. It is for this reason that I really don’t care about a live feed.

  23. Yes, whilst I was never a large watcher of the live feeds it was good to know it was just there to know that the whole thing isn’t fake.

    What gripes me the most is the lack of Uplate. This was a great show on daily that filled you in on the day, showed you what was happening in the house lives, but if nothing was happening or something they didnt want to show they would show streaming from earlier in the day or Mike Goldman would pop on screen to have a chat with an evicted housemate or someone from a previous season.

    I am aware of a big brother confidential coming on Wednesday’s at 10pm but that isn’t as good as Uplate. C’mon 9 you have three channels to choose from – 9, gem and go. Put Uplate back on one of them and I’m sure it will get more ratings than whatever else you have on there. You have big brother now so please make use of it.

  24. Nine are trying to jam a family friendly program into a format which is definitely not that way inclined. You can’t have it both ways. Either insert nubile, vacant minded loudmouths into the house and watch them bitch, fondle and drunkenly blather on, or cast far and wide for some genuinely interesting people (hey, even other ethnic groups!) and see what happens.

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