Twins to win?

Just imagine that someone wanted the Twins to win-money no object.

How much to would it cost to make sure they win?

Last CBB they got 500,000 phone votes total all series.

How much would it cost to win now using FB? Imagine that 250,000 votes will do it this time.

56 GBP = 1000 votes (2 accounts) so if the twins need  250,000 votes to win,, how much will it cost?

Answer
It will take 500 fake Facebook accounts and a spend of just 14000 GBP.

And if that sounds like a lot of money, it is less than the cost of  2 first class fares from Heathrow to Los Angeles on British Airways (From about 15000 GBP)

It would have taken a lot more work dialling and 90,000 GBP to get that number of votes using phone in votes.

I do hope some old bloke with loads of money and a Mansion full of Bunnies does not get to read this lol

Good luck girls.

UPDATE:
Some people believed that I am anti-twins.  Not so. I think they are brilliant game players.
I seldom think that anyone deserves to win because they don't.  I generally have no strong feelings about who gets what.  Much of what I write about is the interplay between people and about BB itself.  What has occupied a lot of my thought since Channel 5 took over is the blatant manipulation and the potential for BB dishonesty.  That especially extends to the voting introduced by Channel 5.  With low numbers of voters (for obvious reasons) the potential for voting fraud is greater than it ever was in the past.

To set the record straight here is an update to the article above.

The full size Image is here: All the Housemates to win?

What do you think of it so far?

Its a week to go to the end of the 2012 CBB as I write this. What have we learned from our frugal allowance of contact and information? The show continues to exist in two places which are interconnected by some very small and regulated tunnels of information exchange.

From Borehamwood, the nightly show continues its heavily structured way through the week.  BBOTS staggers from evening to evening with its random mix of generally irritating and occasionally informative guests.  Emma enjoys herself, which she does well; and Jamie irritates most people, but that may be his forte.  We have been allocated some Live feed after evictions. Not a lot, but some at least.  That is what comes our way via TV.

Social media - specifically Facebook and and Twitter are unmitigated drivel.  The video clips linked back though Facebook are pointless.  The topics in FB and the Tweets are so pathetic it would be funny if it were not for the fact that very well paid and powerful people allegedly believe it is a good idea and a valid replacement for what the fans actually want.  The newspapers and magazines owned by Desmond cover the programme, but few people read them. The other papers and magazines largely ignore it.

The other place the show exists is in the fan community. The fans are held together by two things, the love of the show and the desire to persuade Desmond and his patronising team that we are right and he is wrong.  The fan base that the show has generated for years continues on forums and chat rooms but the information paucity has led to a significant drop in the amount of 'water cooler' chats and office discussions that increased the viewer numbers in years gone by.

So, what have we discussed and what have we learned?
Firstly we have discussed the absence of real Live Feed which is seen as an unwelcome opportunity for the production team to be dishonest and manipulative of story-lines shown. The subject of Live Feed has not gone away regardless of Channel 5 and the attempts of Jamie East to belittle anyone who brought the subject up on his BBOTS segment.  Jamie has said since that it was an attempt at humour but if true he lacks the comedic touch in some matters.  Generally speaking asking someone their opinion on something and then hanging up when they respond is considered bad manners.  Live feed  has obtained the largest figures ever for 5* and beat the viewer figures for BBOTS.  The numbers (not far short of a million) were achieved despite the miniscule length of the broadcasts.  The segments were also broadcast right after evictions, a time when the HMs are normally principally concerned with getting out into the garden to smoke.

The mix of Housemates was eclectic to say the least. The claims of Natasha, Frankie and Andrew to any kind of celebrity status are not strong - they (especially Frankie) were plainly out of their depth.
There did not seem to be a significant USA/UK divide except at the level of game play.  The twins by virtue of who they are and their background were absolutely determined to play the game US style and did it very well.  They know well that their price in the market place is determined by what they do and what they reveal (or don't).  The twins were conspiratorial, devious and Machiavellian at times and kept enough clothes on to preserve their market value.  I never warmed to them and they are unlikely to win but good game Kristina and Karissa.
Michael Madsen was rightly held in awe by the rest of the HMs.  He is the only real celebrity in the house and I hope his fee reflects that. He (with his supporting actors) supplied much of the entertainment. Good game Michael.
Nicola was exactly as we imagined her to be, shrewd, grasping and self centred. Whether cleaning the house to get air time, weeping over the children she chose to leave behind, playing to the cameras in the DR or shredding the other HM's letters from home it was all about her.  She won't win but she played well for her moment in the spotlight.
Denise revealed herself to be a truly troubled soul as her background suggests she is.  She was foolish to get involved in the show. Romeo came across well whenever we got to see him. Gareth is the likely winner and has been since day one. Kirk was fairly unpleasant and slightly ugly of spirit, and Georgia was pleasant and pretty of face. Perhaps there was more to them, perhaps not.
Natalie has probably done herself not too much harm by going in.  Her alliances in the house may have cost her a place on the final eviction night.

Housemates' standards of behaviour seem far lower. For example, in the last series we were belatedly given the information about 'Freezergate'. We found out only because the efforts of C5 and Jamie East to silence Heaven were not successful.  In this series Denise certainly raised her fist in Michael's face, which would have been threatening behaviour when C4 ran the show. The show may be above reproach, or it could be as unsavoury as BB Brazil, we will never know.  In Brazil it was Live feed which enabled the production team to be belatedly held to task. Possibly under C5 management, external scrutiny is to be avoided. Certainly Richard Desmond has no intention of subjecting his newspapers to Press Complaints Council scrutiny either.
Poor behaviour is also amplified by another change under the C5 stewardship - the shopping budget task which is now a farce.  It is futile to pretend that there is any intention of not supplying food and alcoholic drinks to the HMs every single night.  There is no doubt in my mind that the aim of the production team is to ensure that there is every chance of drunken frolics every night, for there is not much frolicking with tired HMs on a diet of water and chick peas. However the stark warning of BB Brazil should be kept in the minds of the team.  And of course, alcohol does not only lead to chance sexual encounters, it also leads to verbal violence and possibly physical violence as well.  BB UK has certainly had some examples yet they persist in pouring endless drink into the HMs .  The overtly sexual behaviour of Frankie and Kirk was unpleasant and it was well dealt with by the females targeted.  Perhaps Kirk will eventually learn that laying around being verbally offensive while scratching his genitals is unlikely to win the hearts of fair maidens even if in the world of TOWIE it is socially acceptable.

Voting and evictions seemed to raise peoples interest as always. Friday's double evictions of Kirk and Natalie had an overtone of Harry's eviction last series and the ever present spectre of FaceBook enabling voting scams is again in people's minds.  It seemed the ideal time for someone to make some money by betting shrewdly. There were lots of people up as well - more than the 4 when Harry got the unexpected boot despite being 33/1. Perhaps last night's eviction was an aberration - but it was certainly an ideal time for an unexpected result perhaps because Natalie was about 3rd or 4th favourite to win.
It would be an understatement to say that surprise was expressed within the house and outside as well when Natalie went.  So voting is still under suspicion and it remains blatantly unfair that phone voters pay more than 5 times the price of Facebook users anyway.  It may have been designed to encourage Facebook 'social media interaction' but in reality Facebook users are Facebook users and phone users are phone users. The only likely effect is that phone users will feel even less inclined to vote because of dissatisfaction with the Facebook discount. It will be interesting to see the voting percentages when they are released to see if there is a change in the Facebook/phone ratio.
If I was of a suspicious mindset I would have said that Friday night's eviction was the one good chance they would get for a 'surprise' outcome in this series. Before now its been 1 v 1, and after now its running totals till the end.
Perhaps Natalie was a result of a shrewd bet and some good information on how the totals were standing and the very useful FaceBook block voting.
Perhaps we will never know.

What do we think of it so far then?
CBB is seen as a holiday camp - with free food and free booze aplenty.  Fans are generally opposed to talking about nominations although it is popular with the housemates to a point.  BB have certainly used it to their advantage this series - a rare well done C5, but its not BB as we know it.  There is something of the night in all of Desmond's doings. There seems little doubt that they have a view about who they want to win but I don't know if they can control it anymore having let the genie out of the bottle with FaceBook voting.  Desmond (Northern and Shell) is wholly about control and money - nothing else.  I am sure he would like the LF money but his production team does not dare to risk losing control of story lines and outcomes.  Even though Mr Desmond's newspapers are not subject to the Press Complaints Council (because he has withdrawn them) I suspect he does not want another Shetty shambles on his TV channels.

Perhaps Live Feed will make or break the next series.
Perhaps we are deluded in our attempts to change the programme back to what it could be and should be.  Certainly we have not 'moved on'.  The sad thing for Channel 5 is that we are right (and we and they know it) and they are wrong.  The sad thing for us is that there is no real way that the Channel 5 owners and the BB production team are likely to have the balls to admit who is right and do something about it.  Live Feed please BB.  Not 45 minutes once an eviction BB.  Live Feed means that; as near to 24/7 as you can manage.  Then we will shut up.  And if you would like to make the Social Media just an add on like it is in other countries that would be good.  And if you were honest and did not cover things up we could believe you so that would be good too.  And if someone has a valid point to make on Facebook and you disagree with it the correct response is to put your side - not delete the comments and block the poster. 
Overall your tasks were a pretty good in places.  Some of your Big Brothers were good.  It does not have to be totally frenetic 24/7 to get us on-side.   We like the longer tasks with real rewards or deprivation.  We don't mind the quiet times and the conversations.  And finally remember, we are the most loyal audience you could ever wish for but perhaps you would be well advised to have us inside the BB tent pissing out and not outside it pissing in.

Voting for a change on BB

I am indebted to http://www.bigbrotherxtra.co.uk/?p=2639  for the following:

"Some 1.5 million votes were cast during nine weeks of Big Brother, 47 per cent of which were through the Big Brother Facebook app.

Channel 5 received around 500,000 votes for Celebrity Big Brother through its telephone services.

Big Brother contributed to a 25 per cent boost in Channel 5′s evening audience while it was on air.

Nick Bampton, the commercial sales director at Channel 5, said: “We took a risk in changing the voting mechanism. Integrating Facebook is a UK first and we’re pleased it has generated a substantial uplift in votes cast.” **"

CBB is only of passing interest.  500,000 votes at 36pence = £180,000 for 3 weeks voting (although the take for C5 may well be a bit less).  BB is a bit more interesting to conspiracy theorists though.

• BB ran for 9 weeks during which time there were 15 housemates (2 of whom walked out).

• 12 were voted out (8 on a weekly vote and 4 on the last night) leaving Aaron the worthy or unworthy winner depending on which camp you belonged to.  The votes were reopened after each eviction on Final night and after the mid week eviction in week 9.

• Viewer numbers were normally below 2 million and generally at 1 million or less.

• Effectively then, viewers and FB voters got to vote for 12 evictions.  They are never going to release the total numbers cast per eviction so I will assume that they were constant.

• Figures for phone votes for the whole series (53% of 1.5 million) = 795000

• Figures for FB votes for the whole series (47% of 1.5 million) =705000

• The total money spent by viewers and FB voters was probably as low as:
  Phone £286200 (795000 x £0.36) + FB  £49350 (705000 x £0.07) (the lowest cost of FB votes was 10 cents or 7p)

Gives a grand total of £335,550, although not all that cash was going C5's way.

You could of course block vote FB credits to the total of 500 per week. Interestingly enough, that total of FB votes (705k) could be achieved by only 1410 bloke votes of the maximum permitted per week. Also of interest is the fact that FB votes brought in about 1 sixth of the vote revenue.

If the votes were spread evenly across all 12 evictions (unlikely, but we have to make a few assumptions if they won't tell us anything), then each eviction received (1.5 million/12 = 125,000) votes of which 66,250 were on the phone and 58,750 were on FB.

Try this for a conspiracy imagination:

Imagine that it was a four way eviction like the one when Harry (33/1) got evicted. Imagine also that it is fairly neck and neck so that each nominated housemate has exactly the same number of votes. Perhaps the total votes cast so far by 5pm Friday evening was 100,000 so each of them had 25000 votes each.  How much would have to be spent to get Harry out the door?
Well, it was vote to save so to get to the average vote of 125,000 another 25000 votes would have to be cast for the other 3 contestants which in FB terms is 50 Block FB votes delivered by 50 different accounts.  Total cost to the FB block voters (whoever they may be) is only £1400.

If you were a gambler attracted by the 33 to 1 odds on Harry being evicted you would only have to wager £42.42 to recoup that outlay if he was evicted.

Of course, you would need to know that the voting numbers were so low that you could 'invest' in FB block votes to the extent that you could change the outcome.  Perhaps you would need someone who had access to the voting totals?

The only really unanswered question in this for me is why are C5 persisting with this block vote, low cost, low profit option? It leaves them open to all sorts of conspiracy theorists like me.  And if it isn't a dark conspiracy then it does have the faint whiff of incompetence - rather like the whole series.

** It is difficult to judge where Nick Bampton gets his confidence in FB voting from.  It registered about 700k votes but it is hard to judge what impact that had on phone voting.

Big Brother ends and the battle continues

Mission Statement:

I will continue the battle for Live Feed even though the show has finished (in what may be best described as an unusual manner.) Perhaps a fitting end to a shabby version of something that was once far, far better.
It started with falsehoods from C5 about what they would offer and descended into acrimony and mutual suspicion as they attempted to stifle all dissent.  The manipulation of all the highlight shows was apparent and served only to annoy the voters.  Aaron was the winner.  He had a large fan base and an equally large and vociferous opposition.

As long as I can I will chase them and harangue them and point out their failings to anyone who will listen.

There have been some good recent articles about BB. 

My first choice is from Kit Marsters.

Kit Marsters at the Huffy Post - Big Brother On Channel 5 - Does It Have A Future?

My second choice is from a fan site.

BBSpy Big Brother 2011 in review

After a night's reflection it seems likely that this was not the result that Channel 5 BB wanted or planned for. It seems that BB did not want him to win but would have preferred one of the two young ladies who had already shown a fair deal of their specific 'talents' in other activities on the web.  Failing a girl win they might have liked Jay to be the face of Ibiza themed BB going forward.  Certainly not metrosexual Aaron.  His ability to think and speak was probably not the asset they wanted as their brand leader. They showed him as badly as they could all the way through.  If he had sought solace by shitting in the freezer it surely would have been a special Highlights show all of its own.

They sought control of everything all the way through and in the end they could not control the combined power of the social media, block votes, fan groups (& gamblers attracted by a nice pay day.)

It is really ironic that the very activity that they thought would help them flog their shabby product turned round and bit them. I take heart from their discomfort.  Perhaps now they see that control and rent-a-mob is not how BB worked and should work.   BB has always been about viewer participation; no viewers, no show C5.

Harry goes - what were the odds on that?

To be evicted? According to the bookies Harry was 33 to 1 earlier in the day.

Its a funny old world

There were 4 people up.  I think the prevailing view is that BB would have liked to see them go in this order of importance:

•     Aaron
•     Harry
•     Faye
•     Jay

 But bookies had them in this order:

•     Faye
•     Jay
•     Aaron
•     Harry

Last time the viewers had a choice they gave Harry the most votes to stay.

This week Harry went from a rank outsider to the man out of the door.  The bookies are not normally that far out so there must have been a lot of voting to save the others in the short time voting was running for (if the support for Harry from the previous vote held up, and there was no real reason why it should not).

Was it possible that anyone had the Means, Motive & Opportunity to change things?

There are three possible explanations as to how this happened:

1.     That is just the way it was: the bookies misjudged the mood of the GBP.
2.     It was a scam perpetrated by gamblers attracted by the 33/1 odds on Harry.
3.     It was a scam perpetrated by another organisation who had access to the running vote totals.

We conspiracy theorists don't like the sound of option 1, and in truth you never see a poor bookie on a pushbike; they don't often get it this far wrong. Paddy Power on BBLB used to turn up and explain to Dermot each week who would get evicted and he was never normally wrong more than once a series.  He was never that far out (33/1 v Odds on which Faye was)

Against option 2 we have a real problem.  The gamblers should have no idea how many votes have been cast for who, especially in a 4 way contest.  Without that knowledge they cannot influence the outcome with any confidence.  For someone to have made money they would:

•     have had to know where the voting totals were and,
•     have a method of getting enough votes on quickly enough to swing the outcome.

Option 3.  For this to work someone or organisation:

•     would wish to influence the outcome of the eviction, and
•     know what the voting totals were, and
•     would have a mechanism for block voting.

For Option 2 and Option 3, insider knowledge would have to exist or be provided.  For Option 2 the only motivator is greed.

If Option 3 were true there are very few organisations that would know what the vote totals were.  However the voting mechanism to block vote does exist since the start of this series.  Facebook provides the ideal opportunity to apply large numbers of block votes very quickly.  Each account can purchase and use 500 votes per eviction/week. Costs are as follows (C5 website):

1 vote for 1 Facebook Credit (7 pence)
12 votes for 10 Facebook Credits (70 pence = $1)
24 votes for 20 Facebook Credits (£1.40)
50 votes for 40 Facebook Credits (£2.80)
100 votes for 80 Facebook Credits (£5.60)

So 500 votes cost £28.00 & 1000 = £56.00

You can block vote your 500 votes on the push of a button (and 2 accounts add up to votes 1000 times on the push of two buttons - a truly automated system using software in the form of the Facebook App).
Note: The Iphone and Android Apps charge £4.99 or £5 for 500 votes - slightly cheaper than Facebook

In the Terms and Conditions C5 says:

34. Channel 5 reserves the right to disallow votes if it has reasonable grounds to suspect that fraudulent bulk votes have been cast (i.e. more votes than a human being could possibly submit in the time available without the use of software or other devices designed to make automated votes).

But this does not seem to allow for the use of any of the Application voting systems outlined above.  In theory all bulk votes could be disallowed but that would negate the reason for having the systems in place.

Channel 5 have not said how they monitor block votes from Facebook and other accounts and do not publish either voting totals or percentages cast using the various mechanisms.  Channel 5 sister publications Daily Express and Daily Star have withdrawn from the (voluntary) Press Complaints Commission supervision so it seems unlikely that they will volunteer such information.

On balance it seems fair to say that an individual or organisation could purchase many thousand votes (using different Facebook accounts) and use them using the new software provided with this series. 

I suggest that the Means to block vote exists now.

Motive? 

Big Brother would have to have a preference about which housemate stays in and potentially wins.  Can that be true?  Is there someone that they want to win?  Is there someone they want out?

Opportunity?

Was anybody watching when the votes were cast? Brian said nothing about votes being verified did he? The voting day allowed in the rerun did go by very quickly. Rumours say that voting numbers are low this series so perhaps it never took many votes to swing it anyway.

I suppose we have to trust Channel 5 that nothing untoward occurred don't we?  After all it does say that:

37. All votes are monitored by Electoral Reform Services.

But of course it does not say how and when.

38. Channel 5's decision in relation to all matters affecting the Vote is final.

I certainly believe the last one though.

If I were an organisation minded to carry out that sort of activity and I knew the vote totals I think I would get a large group of accounts under the control of perhaps one person (who I could trust implicitly and contractually).  Then I would get them to sit there and vote when the moment was right. Just before vote close (when I knew how many votes I needed) I would get them to press the buttons.  Of course that sort of activity would show up if somebody monitored it. 
IF.

Just a little note about a big inconvenience & some selling out

The Inconvenience.
The new OBB tactic is to target Live Feeders by reporting them as Fake.  The sycophantic Facebook team, who cannot bring themselves to take down a Facebook page that tells jokes about rape, have no hesitation in blocking the profiles of the Live Feeders for asking for something sensible on the OBB site.  I am not sure who comes out of this smelling more like the contents of Jay's cigarette packet in the freezer; Official Big Brother or Facebook.  Neither of them are covering themselves with glory though.

Selling out. 

Some of the stalwarts on Twitter who have been fighting for Live Feed seem to have changed their tune. BB_Superfan for example has been a key player on the Twitter Live Feed campaign for the last month but now has now decided to give BB a chance.  Nikki Cowan who was treated very badly by Big Brother for mentioning Live Feed on BOTS is now welcomed back into their arms.   I have asked him if he is back in again.  I await his response.

I saw this post on Facebook: 


"Two of my Twitter chums received DMs purportedly from you-know-who suggesting they ought to consider being housemates, as they clearly have the requisite qualities"

 If this is fact it suggests that Big Brother are willing to 'buy off' the opposition with worthless offers of being a future housemate *LOL*.

What does it tell us if these rumours are true? 
I think it was in Calvin and Hobbes that our stripy hero said that "I don't know which is worse...that everyone has his price, or that the price is always so low.." (The Days Are Just Packed p56 (08 Apr 92) )

The OBB Mods seem to have blocked every feeder last night (12/10/11).  I know I mentioned that this was their intention in my last blog but it still comes as a shock when it happened.  Another little inconvenience.

In summary then.  Buy off (cheaply) as many people as you can (people who may have a following) then block the rest.

Thoughts from a Small Island - a digression

Dr Detroit reminds us that there is another market for the BB product which is severely disadvantaged by Channel 5 and their absolute control tendencies.

I have many friends who do not live in the UK and no longer have access to any Big Brother, certainly Spain, Ireland and America have had little access in the past, and if Desmond and his cohorts have their way, will have none in the future.

What have they to gain from this?

The programme will certainly have no resale value in the future, so they cannot be holding it back for Big Brother xx - The Director's Cut dvd.  And they don't want anyone offshore from our Small Island to watch it now.
I feel the fell hand of the Multi-Nationals behind this.  There has certainly been a desperate scramble on the Internet to regionalise the delivery of material.  It isn't driven by governments because they are like the giant supertankers - it takes them forever to slow down and change direction.  Multi-National corporations however do have the resources to force through this process and have the money and skills at their disposal to make it happen.  It certainly happened with the dvd market.  But that was to ensure that differential pricing would not lead to grey market imports.  There is no profit to be had from blocking BB alone outside of the UK.  It must be a side effect of something else.

The something else.
This seems to be driven by the need to separate markets so that particular products (TV shows for example) can be made available on subscription streams at some time in the future.  Their default setting seems to be that it will only be available in one country and they are perhaps just testing the system.  (This is regardless of the fact that if it can be streamed it will be re-streamed by third parties because the people who are good at diverting the system largely work outside the system).

It does not seem to be wholly a Ch5 issue, BBC iPlayer is the same and I dare say the other TV channels also are closing it down.

Can we sway them with a well chosen argument?
I doubt it.  The Big players seem to be impervious to common sense arguments,  But that does not mean we cannot follow the well trodden pathways of aggravation and avoidance.  We aggravate them and we also circumvent their controls.  They are irritating but we are resourceful.

2 Evictions down - and what have we got?

I think it is fair to say that they are pissed off with us.  We are pissed off with them so that is all square.  Today's questions are therefore...

1. Does Live Feed seem any nearer?

2. How is Twitter filling the gap?

3. Does FB work?

4. How are CH5 reacting?

5. Where do we go from here?

Does Live Feed seem any nearer?

I think it is a fair bet that although we can see nothing out here in the tumbleweeds, deep in panic control there will be a contingency plan.  My view is that the delivery of advertising revenue from the sponsors would have been contractually dependent on the delivery of an audience.  If the sponsors did not insist on that, they may as well have given their cash to charity.

If I can take that as a given then it follows that there would have been a target number involved.  Perhaps the phrase used was that Ch5 would deliver an audience of or greater than X.  Down in the weeds it would have stipulated where and how that audience was measured.  For TV they would use BARB.  For the selected 'Social Media' they would have taken some measurement of the Facebook hits and possibly click-throughs to their web page and videos.  How they measure Twitter is beyond me at the moment because all I see is one way traffic - an endless stream of pointless Tweets from them - ranging from the inane to the totally absurd.  That one-way torrent of drivel cannot be used as a valid measurement for financial transactions.  So, we don't know what they measure and against what target.

What do we know then?  Well, rumours suggest that they have given themselves a deadline to hit targets.  That means, if taken at face value, that they are not meeting them.

What else do we know?  The handling of Nikki Cowan suggests an element of absolute panic in Ch5 - at least in Borehamwood.  The left hand did not know what the right hand was doing and the way they reacted suggests that someone very high up the organisation had shouted at the underlings and they reacted in the way that people do when shouted at. The someone would have to be above the programme producers.  Perhaps in the rarefied air inhabited by dear Jefford.  I would imagine that he is sick and tired of hearing 'Live feed'.  The terseness of his response to questions about Live Feed suggested someone of a testy disposition.  Perhaps the decision to drop it rest on his shoulders and he feels the cold wind from the Job Centre beckoning?   Certainly it suggests that he is the person who will have to change his mind and allow the stream to return to our computers at least.  Perhaps he doesn't like us?  Perhaps he won't take any notice of us?  Perhaps he will only listen to the advertisers and their lawyers?

I asked a colleague of mine about a useful way forward for the campaign.  This was the response.

HOW:
Social Media, the same way Ch5 are trying to control the program. Not just one FB group, a dozen or more. All on the same message, all saying the same things. Twitter, again everybody tweets and re-tweets each other. Over and over again using hashtags to get a trend going. STAY ON MESSAGE AT ALL TIMES, ignore the trolls but re-tweet them to increase the trend.

WHO:
Firstly, Channel Five, ALL of Ch5 not just the program. Directors, heads of department, newspaper editors, everybody. Secondly the fans. Not just the aggrieved like yourself but the others who are still tuning in. Tell them what they are missing and why and keep telling them.

TARGETS:
The Advertisers, they are paying for the program and have very thin skins when it comes to public criticism, they don't like being shown up as supporting an unpopular program.
Again, Channel 5. E-mail complaints and 'suggestions' on how to improve the show.

Enough from me, feel free to suggest anything else you can think of or disagree if you like. If you REALLY want live feed to come back, ever, you have to do something before the end of this show.

 Perhaps Live Feed will get a bit nearer if we adopt these strategies.


How is Twitter filling the gap?
The answer is that it provides the 'endless stream of pointless tweets' that give us the opportunity for ReTweeting and generating publicity.  It will never fill the 'Live Feed Gap' because all it is is somebody else telling us what we should be thinking.  And that, dear Mr Jefford is precisely what Live Feed wasn't.  We watched, we formed our own opinions and we spread the opinions and defended them.

Does FB work?
It provides Ch5 with what they want and it gives us the opportunity to aggravate them.  Ch5 are reduced to inventing whole groups of 'flavoured' posters to combat the constant Live Feed chorus.  Some days they are all Nigerian-ish, others they are Irish-ish depending on who in the office has the job of spamming the walls with pro-Ch5 twaddle.  FB is not working for them unless they are generating enough click-throughs to satisfy the sponsors.  They cannot be measuring traffic on wall posts because they keep on deleting ours.  As long as we do not click through their video or picture links, or take part in the polls we should be doing them no good at all.

How are CH5 reacting?

Badly.  Which is good news for us.

Where do we go from here?
See above in blue.

Do not give up.

Kit Marsters writes - Big Brother - How to Win Back Viewers

Huffy Post

Channel 5 must have expected ratings to drop after Celebrity Big Brother. They must have expected it, as Celebrity Big Brother tends to attract a higher amount of viewers than the regular series. Whether or not they expected a drop of nearly 50% compared to the last series on Channel 4 is a different matter. According to Barb overnight figures, the first five episodes pulled in an average of just 1.7 million viewers, with the first eviction watched by 1.83 million. Indications are that even 1.7 million is proving difficult to maintain, as on Thursday only 1.16 million tuned in to see the highlights. A record low was reached on Saturday, when a mere 900,000 viewers showed an interest. With some eight weeks of Big Brother still to come, it will be interesting to see if Channel 5 can get their audience back to above the 1 million mark, or if even more people will switch off.
Whilst such ratings are still pretty decent for the channel, and they may actually be content with them, it is clear to Big Brother viewers that all is not well.
Why are dedicated fans abandoning their beloved show?
Why are people who have watched the show from series one now moving on?
And what can be done to win them back?
For Linda, it's simple. "Two words are all that's needed - live feed!" She says that she has been a stalwart fan for years, but she will not watch without the feed.
Bradley is still watching but feels that there is room for improvement. He agrees with Linda on the live feed issue.
"Whilst I see their thinking, the people who watch the live feed are the hardcore fans who will watch it no matter what. We are down to the core now. Their thinking is that by providing live feed it makes it harder to hide things and won't get more people watching. They are wrong in the sense that those people are the people who spread the word to the ones who won't watch live feed, who don't know what's going on so won't bother to watch the highlights show. If a BB fan tells them, "You've got to see it tonight, there was a massive argument last night," then others will tune in and become more involved."
Bradley also thinks that the producers should go back to basics. "BB has felt the need to constantly change, whereas apart from the tasks people enjoy the same things that encouraged them to watch in the first place.
The nominations process keeps changing. Go back to the way it was. None of the "surprise" things work; they don't encourage people to tune in, there's no need. Let's go back to nominations on Monday, the announcement on Tuesday, and eviction on Friday. One of the most important parts of the show has constantly been altered and people miss it. In the last few series they didn't even show some housemates actually nominating. With this in mind, the extra nomination programme, when we would see more of the nominations, would be helpful if it returned."
He prefers Big Brother to keep it real. "At present they do everything to create arguments, so much so that none of the arguments are real and are a nightly thing, therefore no one cares. In the first few series when an argument occurred it mattered, because it was real, organic and in some cases, as with Nasty Nick, brewing for weeks. Now they won't let them sleep during the day or allow anything to stimulate them. Give them the opportunity to sleep for an hour or two, or even allow reading material for an hour a day. This will help produce more energy and more excitement. At present they aren't allowed anything but just to sit and wait for a task. They do it to create tension, but in the end it produces boredom and silly arguments. Arguments will come naturally if you allow them to."
Sarah says she used to be an avid viewer. "I loved the sociological/psychological aspect of the show. When I say that, I mean it in terms of group dynamics and being shut away from the outside world, not as a substitute for the care in the community/"OMG I wanna be famous" culture. As a social scientist it was fabulous to see how people formed groups and dealt with isolation. I loved Nasty Nick, because Nick showed some fascinating human traits and instincts to win. It was all about how people get on. I love people watching and this really is the ultimate people watching show. Live footage was brilliant when I was revising for exams - Big Brother has more or less covered my entire career as a student.
"Sadly the show seems to have gone along with the moral decline in this country. It's now about mad people who want to be famous and have the morals and attitudes of alley cats rather than group dynamics. It also celebrates this "I wanna be a star" culture; you never get academics on BB do you? We aren't all boring, but we do have standards. Now it's like care in the community titillation. Let's put a load of unstable people in a house for several months, lock the door and see what happens - carnage! Horrendous, it gives off completely the wrong image to the kids who are the target audience.
"I suppose the major question is why do the producers/makers feel the programme has to be this way now? That's something I'd love to know.
"Let's go back to the more psychological/sociological experiment format. I think the concept has gone from seeing how people react to different situations, to really pushing them to extremes purely for TV entertainment. It's like a human zoo. The problem is, I suppose this could be a reflection of a bad change in society in general, so Big Brother is a symptom. Have tasks, and games, and challenges that test people's endurance etcetera, rather than make them look stupid. I find it really worrying, always have when people leave and are booed by people they have never met."
Bradley agrees with Sarah about the booing. "Eviction night booing. It's revolting and does nothing to improve occasional viewers' feelings on the show. Totally unnecessary and should be banned. Eviction nights used to be special, now they are ruined by nastiness to evicted housemates who often find it terrifying. If so called hardcore fans boo these people, why should others bother to watch? Ban it and tell people there that if they do boo, they will be kicked out and banned in the future."
Sarah has a final point to make: "Have a wider range of people on the show, from different walks of life. The twists that have seen people go into houses in different countries have been fascinating! The age range this year is 18-30, and they all have a very similar demographic."
Whilst the views expressed here are those of just three Big Brother viewers, their sentiments appear to be reflected around the forums. Will they be listened to? Channel 5 and Endemol decide.

BB - Big Brother or Bigger Bully

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Kit Marsters

Writer. Novel editor. Student. Crazy old cat lady.

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Big Brother Versus Mr Nikki Cowan - The Ongoing Saga

Posted: 23/9/11 15:13 GMT

Whilst for many viewers the Big Brother experience on Channel 5 has soured somewhat, for Nikki Cowan it's personal. Living only a stone's throw away from Elstree Studios in Borehamwood, he's perfectly placed to be the official reporter for Big Brother's Bit on the Radio, the unofficial but increasingly popular radio show. Each week he attends the live shows and chats with members of the audience. Later in the night, he reports his experiences live on the radio.
After twice using an Applause Store ticket, on his third visit security and members of the crew referred to him as "the guy from the radio", and he was offered a pass. On subsequent visits he didn't even have to show his ticket. He could simply go to the office, request his pass and sign it out. One visit it was suggested he attend the spin-off show Big Brother's Bit on the Side, though he was advised not to plug the radio show. This was fine by Nikki, who happily accepted the offer.
On Big Brother's Bit on the Side he kept his promise, but he did mention the live feed, much to the delight of many viewers. He also admits to using a "rude word" towards Darryn Lyons. Despite that, he was told he'd been a great guest and would be welcome back.
Unfortunately, it all went downhill from there. "After spending five hours at the compound for the finale of Celebrity Big Brother and having lovely chats with Sally Bercow, Kerry Katona, Brian Belo and Marcus Akin ,and leaving on a high to do the radio show... the next day, for no reason, I was banned.
I arrived to report from the live launch of civilian Big Brother and was greeted on the door by a panicked and irate producer. She instructed the security guards to barricade the entrance and not let me in. As if I was going to rush the gate. She insisted I wasn't with the radio show. She then refused to speak to me."
Nikki ended up going to the main gate, where he was met by security once again. He asked to speak to a producer, and a Bit on the Side crew member told him that it had nothing to do with them; they had no control. They suggested he get in touch with one of the main producers during the week. Feeling rather puzzled, Nikki went home.
"That week I spoke to one of the producers of Bit on the Side, who told me I had upset someone on Big Brother by saying I had permission to be there from him. I unequivocally denied it, as that was a total lie. He said he would find out more and call me back.
When he called me back he told me categorically that, as long as I had a press pass or an audience pass I was allowed back and that I was most certainly not banned. I therefore got myself an Applause Store ticket, like I'd done every time, and went back on Friday."
On the Friday, he discovered that matters had not been solved. Soon after arriving for Tashie's eviction, a member of the Applause Store team asked to see his ticket. Nikki showed it to him, and the team member took it and walked off.
Nikki made his apologies to the people in the queue who he was talking to and followed the team member. At that point he was beckoned over by a police officer and surrounded by security. "I could hear people in the queue gasping and muttering as I was treated like a felon and questioned over my reasons for being there."
He was told by the police that he was not coming onto the site, and that he should go home. Feeling confused, he asked to speak to someone higher up. There'd obviously been a mix up; he'd been told, after all, that he wasn't banned.
Accompanied to the main gate by a member of security and the police officer, he was told over the phone by a member of the production team that they had no problem with him being on the show. They claimed it was full and that they had no control over who the main show let in. They stated they didn't know why he was banned or if, indeed, he even was.
"I was told by the police officer in a very condescending manner that I'd be best off going home. I reminded the officer that I was still allowed on Tesco's land, which Big Brother use for the fans to queue up before the gates open. The security guard concurred, telling me not to cross the railings where the people queue. I duly conceded but returned to the queue."
That night, Nikki had with him a set of posters inspired by housemate Tashie's fish finger incident. Designed by a listener of the radio show, Twitter followers loved it so much that Nikki had a set printed to hand out to audience members. "In my possession that day were 52 posters, A3 size in colour with pictures of Big Brother housemate Tashie crying with a fish finger wedged in her mouth. Down the side of the picture was her name spelt using only the bread-crumbed-meal-time-favourite. As I spoke to people for their opinions, I gave out a free poster."
Right after handing out the last one, security marched down the queue and shouted for the posters to be handed in. The people in the queue were in shock, according to Nikki, and asked to be allowed to keep them, even if just as a souvenir. They were told that the only way to keep their posters would be if they left with them now - they'd not be allowed to take them in. If they did want to come in, they had to hand over their posters, which would be burned.
"I was even told not to do it and that it was wrong. I left soon after, telling the queue not to get into trouble over me."
Nikki was further surprised when he received a tweet from one of his contacts inside the compound, who'd taken a photograph of warm-up act Andy Collins telling the audience that if they were in possession of one of the posters that they "must hand them in or get booted out!"
"Needless to say I was not in a good mood for the radio show that night and shall not bother trying to get back in this week. I will, however, still talk to the queue. Let them try and stop me!"
Nikki's experiences are the most recent in a series of events that have left fans of Big Brother confused and dismayed. Several viewers, making use of the show's Facebook page, have found themselves blocked from the page and even banned from the social networking site altogether. They insist that their comments weren't rude of controversial, nor did they spam the page - one poster only left a single message with a polite request for live streaming.
Viewers from outside the UK, including those from Ireland, are unable to view the clips on Facebook, lauded as the new way to enjoy the Big Brother experience.
Channel 5's press office has been invited to respond to Nikki's experiences, but thus far there has been no comment.

I posted this on Nick Bateman's blog and he deleted it - then reinstated it.

http://bigbrotherveteran.blogspot.com

I posted this on Nasty Nick's blog and it was removed, but now its back again - strange world innit?

Jasmine Merryweather said...

Plenty to think about here Nick, not least your interest in being employed in some sort of advisory capacity *lol*.

First things first. I might have expected you to be a bit more positive about Live Feed. You said in your opening paragraph that "The lack of a live feed is perhaps the most contentious issue for BB fans. But let us not lose sight that it was Channel 4 who forced the issue and took away the live feed citing quite reasonably, the cost, the extra staff and of course the legal issues in having a 24 hour feed."

You are right. It is contentious and is also the most important issue facing the programme and the subsequent loss of the audience. As I have said before, Ch4 lost their collective nerve during and after the Shilpa Shetty incident. They took a foolish risk (of bringing in the disfunctional Jade clan) and it backfired spectacularly. After that they never took a risk and as a consequence they removed anything from Live Feed remotely interesting. (Plus they decided to keep anything that looked like a news story back for the main show.) Channel 4 attempted to kill Live Feed (as it had been) deliberately. They were attempting to back out of the show and did not really care about the future of BB. The cost of providing it (staff and kit) is a red herring, part of the smokescreen. We don't believe cost is the issue. If they stopped paying the people they have censoring Facebook and their own website they would have some cash left to re-employ sensible skilled people to carry out the technical and administrative aspects of the feed. (If the quality of the skills and the educational qualifications of the Facebook Channel 5 admins can be judged by the quality of their language, posting styles and decision making then they will probably be free to pursue other employment opportunities elsewhere once Facebook posting is simplified by the provision of Live Feed.)
Legal issues can be reduced with common sense. We live in an increasingly litigious society; the risk wont go away. Again, my view is that the risk of being harassed by vulture-like lawyers is not the reason either. The real reason that we have no Live Feed is because all the young trendies on the production team took the view that Facebook was the solution to socialising BB; bringing the target audience to them in a risk free manner. Their new voting strategy relies on block Facebook voting by people who are reluctant to pick up the phone and vote. My view is that they chose the Facebook solution first and having talked themselves into believing it would work decided to drop Live Feed (and dropped the audience as well). Th truth is of course that they tapped into the articulate core within Facebook who can use all social media for their own ends, rather than have an external social media solution imposed upon them.
No doubt Mr Ford is a bit aggrieved that we haven't gone away, while his audience has.

22 September 2011 13:23

Big Brother is shedding viewers faster than a cat sheds it’s coat in the summer!

http://www.unrealitytv.co.uk/big-brother/big-brother-2011-in-ratings-crisis/

The Celebrity version of the reality TV series proved a hit for Channel 5 when it launched last month and attracted a decent amount of viewers to the channel over it’s three week run. However, the normal series has now begun and though it launched with 3 million people watching earlier in September, the figures have been steadily falling ever since.

On Saturday night, only 900,000 people tuned in for the hour long daily catchup episode. This was the lowest ratings the show has ever achieved, since it first launched on Channel 4 in 2000.

Although the Saturday episode is normally the least popular of the week, the drop was still marked, with the lowest previous recorded ratings occurring during its 11th series when the weekend special drew in 1.5 million in 2009.

Have you been watching Big Brother? Is it as good as previous year’s? Leave all your BB related comments and musings below.

brian garbutt says:
September 22, 2011 at 11:01 am
bring back the live feed thats the problem.you cannot get to know the housemates with the small amount of highlights that your putting out.you need toget to know them at there normal surroundings when its live its off the cuff,they do things and say things for us to see at a instance,your cutting it and editiong,taking away the build up of relations with the housemates therfore making us watch more to see what they are going to do next.

REPLY
Max King says:
September 22, 2011 at 11:32 am
It’s really boring now that its all young under 30 singles.

Big Brother is supposed to have a diverse mix of people from society. There have been such big characters who viewers love such as Carol or Jonty who would not qualify under these bizzare requirements that you have to be under 30 and single. It’s boring because they are all veery similart

REPLY
Loz says:
September 22, 2011 at 12:11 pm
I think some of the problem has to be down to the fact that it doesn’t start until 10pm. It’s a bit late to start watching something for a lot of the people I know. Plus, the time does float around a bit so can be a bit confusing as to when it’s actually on.

I love BB but have got to say that until last night’s episode which was hilarious I have found this series uninteresting and lacking in energy.

I also think they’ve made a mistake putting contestants in who are all under 30.

REPLY
claire says:
September 22, 2011 at 12:55 pm
I wasn’t impressed at first with the ages of them but its turning out to be quite funny.. 10pm is too late for me 9pm was much better. I have to record it and watch it the night after. Mix it up some more BB, we want more laughs and more drama x

REPLY
DT says:
September 22, 2011 at 1:14 pm
Its on too late for some people. Think we should be voting for who we want out, like the borings gits! Apart from that its great!

REPLY
Debs says:
September 22, 2011 at 1:58 pm
decided not to watch as there were no over 30s. Think that may be one of the main problems…older people generally are more interesting

REPLY
mary tait says:
September 22, 2011 at 4:43 pm
ive been an avid fan all these years a 1hr show with 2min. clips doesn’t do it for this type of show never getting to know housemates or what their doing is rather annoying and irritating so people switch of, big brother means watching you 24/7 but 45mins doesnt come close even 4 or 5 hrs a day we could maybe get interested. by choosing all english under thirties was also a mistake youve lost scots. welsh and irish viewers. i am scottish and a much older viewer i would have liked to watch but it holds nothing for me or my ilk. reading about whats happening on facebook page means absolutely nothing to bb fans, you could say anything how do we know its real.

REPLY
Michael says:
September 22, 2011 at 5:14 pm
There have been quite a few under 30′s that have been entertaining, (Glyn and his egg song etc), but they were REAL people not chosen from a portfolio of would be actors or models. The lack of at least some live feed has had the most influence, the lack of being able to relate to each character while their guard is down. The ‘Social Media’ experiment is not working at all because of the bias of those that are administrating it, any comment that doesnt follow the party line is deleted and users blocked, the people they are attacking are the REAL BB fans, the core audience that channel 5 needed, instead they have alienated them – Channel 5 have missed a golden opportunity and have made a laughing stock of a program that is popular wordwide.

REPLY
Darren says:
September 22, 2011 at 5:33 pm
There are many reasons Big Brother on Channel 5 is failing. The main reason is the lack of live feed. An hour of highlights a night is not enough to really get to know the house mates properly. Highlights can and are minipulated to show certain people in a good or bad way, only live feed truely reflects how people genuinely are. Also the highlights show is on too late for many people, it should be shown at 9 o clock every night which is still after the water shed. Also every house mate under 30? come on, we should he a better mix of ages. What about people from Scotland, Wales and N Ireland didn’t they audition for the show?

REPLY
Jazz says:
September 22, 2011 at 7:19 pm
Channel 5 have got BB spectacularly wrong after the stunningly poor decision making by Jeff Ford and his team. Live Feed was and is the solution to socializing the programme, not some inept and totally censored Facebook offering. Unless he recants this rash decision and perhaps even admits he is sorry for his arrogant and derisive justification there is no way he will get the fans back. The advertisers must be really unhappy with the audience size and with the fall in numbers week on week. We are unhappy with the lack of Live Feed. There is a single solution that will make us all happy Mr Ford:Bring back Live Feed. It might not cheer you up greatly to admit you were wrong but the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step – so get on and make it.

Sleepwalking into a very subtle form of totalitarianism

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Social-networking-sites-are-gagging-free-speech/279714052057549?sk=info


Networking sites are being abused more and more as a channel for controlling, rather than expanding freedom of expression. We're sleepwalking into a very silent and insidious form of oppression.
   
If you subscribe to groups or pages of interest on your favourite social network provider, you will more than likely find that any posting that deviates from the orthodoxy of the group will more than likely be deleted, with the poster getting blocked. What's wrong with that? you might say. If the poster is being inciteful, defamatory or abusive, not very much. However if a poster is challenging statements or opinions that deviate from the orthodoxy of the group founder, and being suppressed simply for this, then this is an abomination and a lamentable commentary upon how little genuine freedom of speech there is in our so called democracy. The fact that such a practice is so mainstream is somewhat chilling. The world wide web has always offered the opportunity of emancipation to a new generation of users around the world. However with the advent of the social networking culture, we are sleepwalking into a very subtle form of totalitarianism. You will see more and more of this wherever you step within this virtual world. Social networking can be a fantastic gateway to a world of people one would never ordinarily meet, but it has the potential to be our enslaver as well. We must avoid sleepwalking into this abstract cage.

Gerry from BB said this on his Blog

A place to discuss things without being overheard


Darren Taylor on FB said

This is what BB's Gerry has said on his blog http://gerrygreek.tumblr.com/

Last night BBUK rated less than 1million viewers for the first time ever! Why I am not surprised:
Last night, Big Brother UK had less than 1million viewers for the first time in its 12 year history ( 925,000 viewers, even the cheaply-produced “Coach trip” gets twice that!)
As the viewers continue to desert the show, advertisers and sponsors are furious and Channel 5 is holding crisis talks.
Unfortunately I am not surprised at all..
After a great Celeb edition (I never missed an episode) the “civilian” housemates are all young, vacuous, good-looks-but-no-depth types. There is NO Scottish, Welsh, Irish or foreign housemates, none are disabled, none are over 30 or fat.
If the audience needs a Club 18 - 30 scripted series, they can switch to “The Only Way is Essex”, “Geordie Shore” and a plethora of American trashy imports. The producers probably think they are following current TV trends but this way they alienated older, established viewers of a programme that used to get 4-5 million viewers.EVERY DAY, 7 DAYS A WEEK, FOR 13 WEEKS!
The Big Brother freak-show in its Golden epoch, had varied ages, nationalities, backgrounds = media-savvy desperados as well as eccentrics that are there for the thrill of it.
Furthermore they seem to have too much contact with the outside world + cigarettes, booze, hair-straighteners etc.. (Celeb BB even allowed housemates to bring in Ipods!) I say make the housemates EARN their luxuries (and if they fail the task watch the slaughter).
The IMPORTANCE OF THE LIVE FEED
By abolishing the Live Feed altogether, Channel 5 got it wrong big style:
First of all the LF created heaps of buzz. Entertainment/TV editors for newspapers as well as bloggers and BB forum members, watched the live feed religiously and instantly, reported on events.
Secondly. Big Bro is all about getting to know the characters, immersing yourself into their lives.
There have always been wannabe model/presenter/singer types in the house. It was part of the BB success recipe from day one. BUT because of the live broadcast (day-time on E4, night-time on Ch4) the viewers would warm up even to the most superficial humans.
People often tell me that in the morning before they made coffee, they switched on the live feed. Most often they had careers, jobs and families to look after, but perceived us housemates as part of their lives. In BB8 we got tons of fan-mail from shelters, hospitals and even from prisons. Inmates were locked into their cells after 7 & they watched us all night arguing, chatting and yes even sleeping!
Recently Channel 5′s director of programmes Jeff Ford said: “We could have done live feed but we’ve moved on from watching people sleeping”.
Well-said darling. Alas the viewers HAVE MOVED ON TOO…
Now Mr Ford, pull your head out the sand and take action while you can salvage the show. Surely Ch5 can broadcast some form of live feed instead of that dreadful Super-Casino nonsense. You have got a golden goose in your hands AND you are slowly KILLING IT.

Thanks Gerry.  I got bopped for telling people about your Blog but I will tell you about it tomorrow
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Big-Brother-Censorship-Official/252771224765108?sk=wall 

How to campaign successfully to ensure all stakeholders (us) have a say

Before we wander off to have a think about how we can change things viz-a-viz Live feed, a few thoughts on where we are after a week or so.

We have reached the end of the first week of OBB (Ordinary Big Brother).
This is not to be confused with the OBB (Official Big Brother) Facebook page which exists in two forms: The Community and the TV Show.  There is a reason for this but it is not obvious to me.  Someone suggested that it may be to do with keeping the Live Feed Spammers out but that cannot be the complete case for once we found out about it, we spammed there as well.

It may be to do with the voting system that they are trying to put into place.  The previous voting system seemed quite well regulated (externally) and above suspicion.  That may no longer be the case as both CH5 and FB can hardly be said to be independent and yet they are the owner and provider of the system which allows those within it to vote a fraction of the cost of those outside it.

The system using the FB App allows massive numbers of block votes from multiple accounts.  A disreputable organisation which knew what the current vote totals were might easily be tempted to use multiple accounts at low costs to ensure that their favourite was kept in the house.  500 votes can cost as little as £30 but if you are a big rich company and a fair % of that £30 is coming back to you, what is to stop you voting tens of 1000s of times and ensuring your own outcome is achieved.  All the changes wrought so far seem to be about distancing the viewers from the show so this may be a logical progression.

Who is going to be the independent adjudicator for the votes now?

I asked Channel 5 for some reassurance about the integrity of the new system:

Dear Channel 5. Can you please explain how you intend to ensure that the new Facebook block voting system is independently administered to ensure that there is no block voting from within the organisation to influence outcomes and also to ensure that the actual vote numbers are both kept secret from your group until the final vote is taken and that the actual total votes cast are published with the numbers broken down to show the amount of votes tallied against each voting mechanism provided?
Thank you
JM

So back to the theme of this blog today: What can we do?

I think the first thing we need to do is find somewhere else to discuss strategies.  Only today the Live Feed Organiser was deleted as it is his group that provides a focal point for the 'Bring Back Live Feed' members. 

I think it would be prudent to set one up as soon as possible while we are still able to converse.

I shall return here in due course...

Guardian comments

Just reading some excellent comments on the Guardian to this article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/sep/14/big-brother-ratings

Flipsidetv
14 September 2011 5:59PM
Channel 5 cannot see that by alienating viewers(anyone over 30 can just shuffle off to the glue factory in their opinion) and by removing a live feed(an integral part of the Big Brother show)that this would have a dramatic effect on ratings, add to this many of the "housemates" are already trained up as actors or media presenters, it's not Big Brother, it should be renamed The Only way is Borehamwood.

anthony47
14 September 2011 6:26PM
It ain’t Big Brother any more, the only people watching them 24/7 are some newly churned out, dim Media Studies graduates in Porta Cabins outside the house.

How they allowed such an interesting format to be trashed in such a way is a mystery to me. I clocked in one night and when you take out the ad' breaks you have about 45 minutes of editorial jiggery pokery. If that's not enough of an insult to the format (45mins) if you then clock on to OK TV the next day, they will show you some of those same clips over again, nothing new, no effort at all has been spared to tell us naff all.

Whoever is overseeing this series needs the boot pronto because its farcical. We now know why Channel Five have such low ratings, if they can't grasp the concept of Big Brother and what “it” means, there’s no hope for them.

I was an avid BB follower and looking forward to this series and others to come, and funnily enough I thought they would produce this show far better than CH4 and take it to a new level, how wrong can you be? Shambles, utter shambles.

stentionhouse
14 September 2011 6:26PM
There are various reasons why C5's poor interpretation of Big Brother is failing & will continue to do so. Top of the list, even above the loss of the essential live feed, is the appalling way they've treated the long term fans of the show.

They have repeatedly broken Facebook's T&Cs (the 'malicious reporting' part, to be precise) in an attempt to gag the huge flood of complaints on their page.

Jeff Ford made his notorious 'we could have had a live feed...but we've all moved on' speech - pretty much guaranteeing the show's die hard fans would switch off.

All of the tweaks have made the show much worse - OTT Marcus, captions, incidental music, annoying flashbacks, dire spinoff show, all English housemates, all 30 or under, all media experienced wannabes, one or two of whom would have been more at home on CBB than the likes of Bobby or Lucien.

There's no way the viewers can ever get to know the housemates with the paltry snippets we're shown. Unlike a show such X Factor, I'm A Celeb or Britain's Got Talent, we're not voting on performances but on the overall personality of the housemates. As we can't get to know them at all, few will vote. And few will watch because it's just so frustrating.

CBB rated relatively well because it contained big, current RTV stars. BB was always going to struggle - and the dreadful way C5 have conducted themselves and awful changes they've made to what was essentially a pretty sound formula will surely spell the final end for a once great show, after fans had got their hopes up that it had been reprieved.

Richard Desmond was clearly hoping to use the Big Brother name to shift copies of his papers and magazines, with a few spinoff shows thrown in documenting the latest woes of Kerry Katona and the like. He cares nothing about the format of Big Brother, its history or the people who kept it rolling for so long. He wanted a new audience - and he's gone one. A rather small one, even by C5 standards.

Mickey31
15 September 2011 10:16AM
Like many,i was a fan of Big brother from the beginning and i hardly ever missed an episode in all the time it was on channel 4 but since seeing one episode of Cbb i've given up on it.Its one thing to make afew changes and add your own flavour to something but channel 5 have missed the whole point.
The Whole point of Big Brother was that you could watch a live social experiment for several hours a week and see how the charactors got on(or didn't)or got drunk and said or did stupid things which used to be in all the tabloids and all the fans on all the forums would be talking about it for the 3 months it was on and often for a couple after that,the advert used to say " SAY GOODBYE TO YOUR SUMMER" and millions pretty much did and got completely addicted but all that has gone due to the lack of,not only 24/7 live feed but also the axing of live feed after the main show at night,when all the things that made Big Brother popular used to happen.
Jeff Ford,the person to blame for most of the problems with channel 5,arrogantly said channel 5 had decided to move on from BB 24/7 live feed and pointed out that channel 4 temporarily got rid of it,but what he seems to have missed in his questionable wisdom is that Channel 4 never got rid of live bits at night because they knew it was when all the action happened and the very reason why so many were hooked.
Anyway,Jeff Ford says channel 5 have move on an so should Big brother fans and i for one have taken his advice and move on to another channel.Frankly its no wonder channel 5 are so unpopular if thats their attitude,they deserve everything they get.

The world view of Big Brother

There are six special pan-regional versions of Big Brother. All these follow the normal Big Brother rules with the exception that contestants must come from each of the different countries in the region where it airs:

• Africa: Angola, Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania,Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
• Former Yugoslav Republics: Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro.
• Arab States: Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Syria and Tunisia.
• Pacific: Chile, Ecuador and Peru
• Scandinavia: Norway and Sweden.
• United Kingdom and Ireland: England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Ireland
• The USA Version is slightly different and did not follow the Endemol format from Series 2.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Brother_(TV_series)

Key points about the format are as as follows: 
A group of volunteers living together under continuous observation are gradually voted out over a period of weeks.  The public choose who to vote out from a subset of that group selected by the group themselves.  The public have a chance to observe the group and decide who they wish to evict based on that observation.
The series is notable for involving the Internet. Although the show typically broadcasts daily updates in the evening (which are sometimes criticized for their heavy editing), viewers can also watch a continuous, 24-hour feed from multiple cameras on the web. These websites were highly successful, even after some national series started charging for access to the video stream.

Nobody has yet given up live streaming (possibly subject to a delay for legal reasons) apart from Jeff Ford and the apologists at Channel 5.  Other countries, notably the USA have added a Social Media interaction as well, but they have used it to increase viewer share for the regular coverage and live streaming (10% increase). 

Everybody is watching Live Feed - except the UK.  But that decision was not made in consultation with the users; it was a unilateral decision by those who seem to know little about what keeps the show in schedules worldwide.  Having decided to make a mistake there seems little to dissuade them from learning and changing.  The world decides (based upon experience) that Live Feed is necessary and Channel 5 decides it is not.  Their reasons for this conversion on the road to Damascus seems to have been the partial information from Channel 4 that viewer numbers were decreasing.  What Channel 4 failed to put into the public domain was that the reasons for that were largely their decision to place less and less information into the Live Streams.  They quoted legal issues but in truth the first reason was that they got burned in the Shilpa Shetty incident and never recovered their nerve.  Their early involvement with controversy with 'PJ and the BJ' and Stuart under the table with Miss Bass faded into inconsequential footnotes once the very righteous GBP and the Press got on their high horses as never before after a British Institution revealed her more unpleasant side.  
Another reason was that they wanted to withhold Live Stream content to provide the main show with story-lines.  They also did not wish the main show version of events to be in conflict with the actual chronology of the action watched, and often recorded, by the Live Feed watchers.  Channel 4 showed less and people watched less.  In the words of the loathsome Meerkat - "schimples".  This was never a sensible reason to remove the main plank of the show's existence all over the world.  But it is the only reason advanced so far by the dogmatic and determined Mr Ford.