What is going on with Big Brother Ratings?

On Monday night, after months of promotion, Nine’s incarnation of Big Brother finally hit our screens debuting to a national (five city metro) audience of over 1.6 million viewers. On Tuesday, 1.3 million watched, Wednesday 1.1 million, then on Thursday the shows’ figures fell below the magic million and lost its lead in the 7pm timeslot.

Granted – Thursday night is the worst of the five weeknights for ratings, while the huge audience on Monday night’s debut was not doubt due to curiosity (or people leaving their TVs on Nine after the Olympics), but it does appear that Big Brother is not holding its audience.

Why?

Perhaps the problem is there is no live feed like there was when Ten aired the show. Or, if you follow the Big Brother live twitter feed, you already know what the HM’s (the housemates for those not acquainted with the abbreviation) are doing all day. And then to see that on TV for an hour at night then simply is not entertaining enough – we already know most of what has happened from reading tweets all day. Not to mention the fact that Nine send out press releases that basically give away too much.

From my own experience, I find the show boring and can see why it is not engaging a large audience. I saw 10 minutes of BB last night where the HMs had to dance within 90 seconds of hearing music on the little stage in their back yard. I ended up switching to GO! for a Big Bang Theory repeat (as Alicia B was blogging Masterchef All Stars at the time so I was left flicking around on our other TV! By the way, Over The Hedge on 7mate looked MAD in HD – but didn’t leave on so the kids could get to bed on time – and COPS on ONE despite saying it is HD – is really not in HD. HD rave & rant concludes, back to the subject at hand).

All that aside, I was never a fan of Big Brother but have tried watching Nine’s version. I feel though I get enough from the twitter feeds and Courtney’s excellent posts on Throng to satisfy my need to keep up to date with what is going on.

Hard core fans will remain – and we thank many of those fans for contributing to the comments on this site.

But if Nine are to succeed with Big Brother, they need to listen to what the fans are asking for.

For example – what ever happened to the nightly Up Late? Supposedly meant to air on GO! No sign of it – only Big Brother Confidential to air on Nine next Wednesday night (August 22) at around 10.10pm after the premiere of Dallas.

Maybe ratings will settle after the first elimination which airs on Nine next Sunday (Aug 19) at 6.30pm (same time as Masterchef All Stars Grand Final). That is preceded by a daily show on GO! at 6pm Sunday.

Big Brother airs on Nine Monday to Friday 7pm, Sunday 6.30pm, GO! Sunday 6pm and Nine 10.10pm Wednesday for Big Brother Confidential.

Meanwhile Courtney blogs Big Brother close to live on Throng every episode.

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  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003368455102 Courtney Lewdon

    I’m not too concerned about the ratings; and I expect even less for tonight. What I will say is that it is becoming clear that Big Brother is becoming maybe a tad too hosed down.

    In 2007, they took the whole ‘family friendly’ approach. It didn’t work, granted it followed a controversial year and not many people could take the show seriously.

    But today, a family friendly edition could work very well, even if Nine also provided a risqué side to the show. If ‘rude’ or ‘edgy’ situations were aired in that promised ‘UpLate daily show’, it wouldn’t render the show ‘non-family friendly’. It’s just really hard, if not impossible, to get the balance right on Big Brother. If people do want a more risqué show, they’ll tune into the later show and abandon the 7PM show. This isn’t really a good solution.

    When the show is controversial, people want it scaled back and it gets bad press. If the show is more family friendly, it becomes boring and the show still gets bad press. The best thing Nine could do is offer an online live feed of some sort that is unedited; and keep the televised content clean. The housemates this year aren’t really that boring- favourites and villains are being created all over the place. I think what’s making the show boring is the lack of viewing diversity. I personally find it quite interesting; but maybe the nostalgia factor is still infecting me. As a Big Brother fan, an UpLate show would excite me; so maybe all Nine need to do is bring back what was such a loved show.

    People also want Friday Night Games back. They were fun and exciting. They were also family friendly. It got a bit cringeworthy towards the end, but if they made it more competitive and a little more serious, it could work.

    But I don’t know; in my opinion, nothing will ever satisfy Big Brother fans. If the ratings fall, there’s not a hell of a lot Nine could do to stop them falling. There’s a lot Nine COULD do- but I doubt it would work.

    • http://www.facebook.com/mikiglat Miki Glat

      Yeah, I agree Courtney – if they bring back live feeds and uplate, I really don’t think the ratings would make much of a difference. I just think the housemates this year are not what Big Brother promised – who wants to just hear housemates speaking about baking bread etc. Several of people I know have just called the show plain boring.

      • http://www.facebook.com/mikiglat Miki Glat

        And when people like Bradley want to have an indepth discussion about politics that could cause some good conflicts/constructive critisicm – they all cant be bothered!

        • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003368455102 Courtney Lewdon

          To be fair; he brought it up late at night after the housemates had a good discussion about political topics. I’ve watched a few clips online that show Bradley spreading his knowledge to other housemates, and it’s rather interesting. None of it, however, is shown on television.

  • Matthew

    I agree with this post though I am no fan of the Twitter / Facebook updates. I watched BB from 2001-2008 Really enjoyed all seasons and really enjoyed the Live Feed , Friday Night Games and Up Late but Channel Nine is killing BB without all them coming back it’s just not the same without them :(

  • mycreations

    I think wait till Sunday and Monday then we will no how many ppl want to watch it. Thursday and Fridays are always down so I don”t really think channel nine should worry to much yet. Also it did good in the demo”s and was still the most watched show with home and away, apart from news programs

  • William

    Just bring back Up-Late
    As for FNL- we have to wait for the NRL TV Rights Deal because that had an effect on it for this year as there is only 30mins tonight and Tuesday aswell

  • DP

    I have contacted channel 9, Southern star production company and was told the following…No up late, no live feed, no friday night games. I am watching people like me, the die hards who you say will see it through go nuts at both the network and the company who produces it. I was banned from the FB BB page for asking too many questions which I explained was because they werent answering. I never missed an episode when it was on 10, tonight I didnt bother. Nine had no idea what they were getting themselves into when they signed the contract last year. Already they have shown they arent willing to listen to the public and as a result will have one of the biggest duds in TV history

  • Anonymous

    I am just really annoyed that there is no “Friday night games”!! Channel nine is doing a crappy job tbh.

  • Marty

    I think audiences are becoming smarter and the days of showing stuff geared at the two braincell minority are on there way out and when you consider your watching 42 minutes of “edited” content then its not a real representation of whats happening it is a edited version so really its a fake version of Big Brother but half the audience won’t get that there not smart enough and really its lost when you attempt to explain that to someone with the thinking capacity of an 10yo.