The rise and fall of Big Brother
Our weekly columnist Raymond Snoddy looks at the decline of Big Brother and asks whether Channel 4 should be careful of becoming “too dependent on a Big Idea that will inevitably have a finite life”…
It wouldn’t be polite to dance too enthusiastically on the grave of Big Brother. The programme helped to define, if not actually create, a new genre that spread round the world faster than a flu epidemic. It raised lots of loot for Channel 4, principally from the phone lines, and gave advertisers a sure-fire way of reaching the elusive 16 to 34-year-olds while allowing the channel to claim the programme was edgy and innovative and therefore well within remit.
Founding Channel 4 chief executive Sir Jeremy Isaacs may have wrinkled his nose in considerable disdain but one of his successors Mark Thompson claimed to find it really exciting – because you never knew what was going to happen next. Right Mark. Tabloid newspapers vied with each other to be the “official” Big Brother paper and for the Daily Star it lifted a huge burden from the editor. He didn’t have to find a new splash all the time like other editors. All that was needed was a new Big Brother story every day without fail.
That was then. This year the ratings have been going down like a leaking balloon, there is no sign of endless Big Brother gossip and even the tabloids, usually well tuned to what sells, don’t seem to give a toss. BB10 still produces a respectable viewing share among the younger generation but in actual numbers that equates to around 700,000 – 800,000 if you add in repeats.
Whether they like it or not Channel 4 is committed to another series next year and that surely will turn into a wake unless somebody somewhere comes up with some bright new ideas. It is possible to breathe fresh life into whiskery TV formats – Jeremy Clarkson and Top Gear is a textbook example of how it can be done but it is not easy and in the case of BB the raw materials are very thin and very constrained geographically. Most varieties of human freakery have already had their outing. Just a modest suggestion. A higher proportion of inmates with more substance might help. I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here manages to achieve a broader appeal as a result.
But perhaps Mark Lawson is right when he argues that most television entertainment formats have a natural life-span of around eight years. After that and you start pushing boulders up-hill. Certainly some classic comedies haven’t even lasted that long. There were only four series of Monty Python’s Flying Circus – the 40th anniversary is in October – and John Cleese only made two series of Fawlty Towers.
Three years ago at an RTL internal management conference it was confidently predicted that the era of reality television – and in particular the cruel variety – was reaching its end and that the search for the next new big thing was on. Perhaps it might even produce something more gentle – warmer. The pronouncement of the death of reality TV may have been a little premature but what is certain is that there is no sign of a new runaway genre emerging to take up the slack. Anyone who manages to produce such a genre will become seriously rich – particular if it is taken up by the young. Although the young actually watch much more television than pundits give them credit for.
The problem is that the big new thing of the past few years has been social networking and that has, if anything, been a partial substitute for conventional viewing. And as ITV found out any thoughts of buying a social networking site called Friends Reunited for around £175 million and argue – as they did at the time – that it would somehow be complimentary to television made a very expensive mistake. Apart from the natural aging cycle of entertainment formats social networking may have helped to drag some viewers away from Big Brother.
While BB was a success, Channel 4 was happy to shrug off most of the criticisms – apart from allegations of racist abuse which they were not allowed to ignore – and bank the money. The series may have produced something like 20 per cent of Channel 4’s revenues and the decline could not be happening at a worse time. Not just the recession to cope with but the Government has in effect cut the channel adrift apart from what it can negotiate with BBC Worldwide on normal commercial terms.
Can anything be done – apart from locking a cross-section of independent producers in the Big Brother house, supply then with beer and sandwiches and don’t let them out until they come up with a new idea? If that doesn’t work maybe its time to make a virtue out of necessity and celebrate the enormous range and variety of British television production. Ultimately this might be a less risky strategy than becoming too dependent on a Big Idea that will inevitably have a finite life.