Has The Big Brother Bubble Burst?

Oscar Wilde said: "Yet each man kills the thing he loves." Although I'm sure he intended his assertion for something more lofty than a reality TV show, I still can't help thinking how apropos with regard to the Big Brother franchise. Y'see, it's my opinion that the producers of the series and broadcaster Channel 4 have slowly killed their golden goose. A case in point - Rachel Rice won Big Brother 9 and, in the infamous words of Lauren Alesha Masheka Tanesha Felicia Jane Cooper: 'am I bovvered'? More tellingly, were the red tops bovvered? Answer, no. 

  

Back in 2007, a 'race row' involving Jade Goody, Jo O'Meara, Danielle Lloyd and Shilpa Shetty engulfed the Celebrity Big Brother house. It ignited debate in Parliament, provoked an international storm, prompted flag-burning in India and resulted in over 45,000 complaints to the authorities. In addition, it saved Celebrity Big Brother 5 - ratings soared.

The annual summer Big Brother went ahead and faced the usual criticism of attracting the fame-hungry and talentless. Yet even before Brian Belo was crowned BB8's winner, the inquest had begun. Ratings fell, dropping to an average of 2.7 million viewers one week in June when it struggled against ITV1's Britain's Got Talent; the tasks were far from memorable and hardly any of the twists worked. Remember Big Sister - the oestrogen-filled house of the first week? Liam's £100,000? The disastrous Halfway House? Although I personally preferred it to BB7's big yawner (Golden Ticket winner Susie anyone?), like a curry-chomping Jade Goody in the London Marathon, Big Brother 8 huffed, puffed and struggled towards the finish line.

So, time for a rebrand.

 

Instead of Celebrity Big Brother, we had a three-week winter show with 12 talented (in some cases) but not-quite-famous young people aged 18-21. The twist on the celebrity angle coming from stars, including the likes of Matt Lucas and Russell Brand, hijacking the role of Big Brother and having the run of the House. Channel 4 launched the show, then made the horrendous mistake of shoving it solely on their channel of endless Friends repeats, E4.

 

The effect was immediate: average ratings dropped from two million in week one to 700,000 in week two. Week three was even worse - down to 540,000. The 9pm highlight shows have produced disappointing figures too, hovering around an average of 500,000 viewers; a disaster considering that Reaper, E4's new US import, managed 779,000 viewers in the same slot. Even the evictions, normally solid ratings pullers, performed badly. When entrepreneur Liam and circus performer Victor got the Big Brother boot on Friday January 18, it saw one of the worst average ratings of the series. During the first part of the eviction, which aired between 8pm and 9pm, only 350,000 viewers bothered to tune in. Ratings were hardly spectacular over the weekend that followed; Saturday's highlights show achieved 422,300 viewers, while Sunday's edition managed 421,500 viewers.

 

However, more telling has been the quality of the Celebrity Hijackers - going from the well known (Ian Wright and Alan Cumming) to the not-so-well-known (some girls off Hollyoaks and Mat and James, the two presenters of Big Brother's Big Mouth) and the truly bizarre (art critic Brian Sewell and soldier-turned-novelist Andy McNab).

 

The general reaction on sofas across the land wasn't outrage and indignation at Big Brother antics. It was even worse - indifference. The success of Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack can be approximately measured as follows: ratings (down), tabloid press interest (down), celebrity magazine covers (down), forum message threads (down) and number of eviction votes cast (down).

The stench of disinterest also extended to Big Brother 9; the overnight average for the series (inc. Channel 4 +1) was 3.3 million and the official average (inc. Channel 4 +1) was 3.6 million. The series also generated the lowest figure ever for a Big Brother launch night (5.4 million) and the lowest figure ever for a Big Brother finale (4.9 million). Nice-girl winner Rachel Rice disappeared from the celeb rags almost as soon as she was crowned and we haven't even mentioned the disaster that was Big Brother's Little Brother presenter Zezi Ifore.

 

Channel 4 relies heavily on the Big Brother brand for a staggering percentage of its annual advertising revenues. It reportedly paid over £30 million to air the series until 2010 ergo Celebrity Big Brother 6 has to deliver - and that's the bottom line. However, the truth is, the Big Brother rot set in long before Jade Goody's disastrous argy-bargy with Shilpa Shetty. And yet, it's hard not to see the irony of its most successful housemate consigning the series to the graveyard: "Sorry," she told the Daily Star a few months ago, "but that show is over."