Is Anyone Watching Big Brother Ten?
Has the Infamous Reality TV Show Lost its Way or Can it Be Revived?
Jun 7, 2009
Big Brother 2009's live launch show was watched by 5.1 million people, the third lowest ratings since its 2000 debut. By the third of the nightly highlights programme the figures had fallen to 2.2million, spurring commentators to wonder whether the once popular series had reached the beginning of the end.
After its debut on British TV in 2000, Big Brother- a programme concept originating from the Netherlands' Endemol TV where strangers locked in a house away from the outside world are monitored 24/7 for the public's viewing pleasure- became a worldwide hit.
Big Brother as Cultural Phenomenon
UK audiences were intrigued as people from varying races, classes, ages and locations were confined and at the mercy of 'Big Brother' who controlled their daily activities, and watched fascinated as the contestants raged, crumbled, copulated and plotted their escape live on TV.
Big Brother not only heralded the broadcasting of the 'normal' as entertainment, it popularised viewer participation through phone-ins and online viewing and captured the nation's attention nightly for three months.
One commentator wrote "[Big Brother] was applauded for bringing identities other than the 'white, straight and British' to the fore. It raised the overall profile of transsexuals, gays and lesbians, and non-white peoples and, some would argue, raised awareness for marginalised identities." (Big Brother Ten Years On: What Is The True Legacy? Gaire.com, June 5, 2009.
At its peak, viewing figures reached 10 million for the final of Big Brother 3 in which Kate Lawler won (but Jade Goody emerged as the most popular housemate in terms of earnings and media coverage) making it the most watched Channel Four show ever. On average, Big Brother pulled in around 4.6 million per series and various housemates like Nasty Nick (BB1), Makosi Musambasi (BB6) and Nikki Grahame (BB7) became household names.
Loss of Viewers for UK Reality Show
The downturn began in series 8 when weak housemates and uninteresting twists saw ratings drop to only 3.9 million viewers, making it the least watched Big Brother up until then. Series 9 in 2008 fared even worse with Belinda's eviction pulling in only 3 million, the lowest rating in the history of the show.
Backlash against the 'celebrities' the programme spawned, whose only claim to fame was living in the Big Brother house turned opinion against the show, and housemates' shameless attempts at gaining stardom and the continued selection of vacant, uneducated contestants began to jar the public.
Now 10 years on, Big Brother's opening night and subsequent highlight shows failed to impress. Journalist Kevin O'Sullivan remarked that BB10's contestants were "watered-down versions of all the caricature grotesques we’ve seen before: the gormless glamour girls, the gay stereotypes, the pathetic narcissists, the outright freaks, the fame-hungry desperadoes, the middle-aged losers who should know better…" (Spare Me The Rod (rigo) And Spare Me Big Brother), The Mirror, July 7 2009.
Big Brother Revamp
Can the show ever be as popular as it once was? Not likely, because the appeal of the original series was the novelty of the programme structure, but these days television screens are saturated with reality shows.
Another contributing factor to the success of the earlier shows was the innocence of the participants in terms of their motives for entering the house, but now housemates go on the show with the express intention of becoming celebrities upon their exit, and their knowing asides to the camera and pre-show strategies render their behaviour in the house unnatural.
Perhaps a dynamic set of housemates and some provocative twists might boost the shows ratings once more, but all indicators point to a programme that has peaked spectacularly and is now in decline.
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