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A buzz about Big Brother

Channel, host, location and a return to Dreamworld have neither been ruled in nor out. But fans are already excited.

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By the looks of the online reaction late yesterday, Nine is sitting on a winner with the idea of a Big Brother revival.

The show was trending on Twitter, and there was a flood of comments to TV Tonight in a relatively short time frame.

Some of the show’s more successful graduates were also tweeting their enthusiasm:

Chrissie Swan: Yay! Big Brother back in 2012. So exciting!
Ryan Fitzgerald: I’m so going to become addicted to that show, pumped!

But nobody should be too surprised by the reaction. Big Brother always triggered a reaction, for better or worse. It was only a matter of time before somebody revived it.

Much has changed since we last saw the show in 2008. We now have multichannels, Facebook is firmly entrenched (it was all so MySpace back then) and Twitter is a phenomenon.

All of these can help the show to spring back in 2012.

The idea of the Secrets aspect, as discussed by TV Tonight in April, will bring a new element to the show. It was used successfully in Secret Story, the French version of Big Brother, following The Loft. With cash prizes on offer for discovering housemate secrets, it forces them all to engage with one another.

One of the reasons Big Brother is back in the spotlight is the success of stripped formats: The Block, MasterChef Australia, The X Factor -only The Renovators has failed on this front. If Big Brother is added to GO! at 7:00 every night, it could help lift Nine’s network share every night.

A source tells TV Tonight that most of the decisions on the show are yet to be made: channel, host, location are still to be decided. Questions about a return to Dreamworld or similar have neither been ruled in nor out.

“The economics of these sorts of shows when they work, make a lot of sense,” they said. “Look at what MasterChef has done or the first few years of Big Brother.”

For now we’ll have to sit tight as the project unfolds.

On the show’s official website there’s just the big BB eye with the words, “BigBrother.com. Coming Soon.”

64 Responses

  1. It’s exciting because we might finally have a locally produced show that drives content on digital FTA channels. X Factor/Xtra Factor kind of did it last year but with a stripped nightly show like Big Brother there’s a real chance that GEM or GO! can get a serious foot in the door of ratings-based advertising revenue.

  2. I work inside Channel 9 and have been working on this project. No decisions have been officially made but it wont be filmed on the Gold Coast anymore. The host will come from inside the Channel 9 stable, on top of our list at the moment is Shane Crawford and Jules Lund with a female new talent.

  6. If they get the social media aspect right, and get the right host, and the right guests, and the right time slot, it’s certain to get at least one more successful season.

  8. Fantastic that it’s coming back!

    Nine would probably stuff it up if they did it themselves, so hopefully it will be produced like it was before and nine just show it, and I hope it’s on Gem so we can enjoy it in HD.

  13. Doesn’t matter if its on GO! or Nine. it will rate through the roof- fuelled by social media.
    If it premieres on GO!, it will break multichannel records simply because its probably the boldest thing ever attempted on them. If it premieres on Nine, it will be successful anyway.
    Well done Nine- I’m already pumped for The Voice Australia, as long as you don’t have the two on at the same time, I will be watching.

  15. @Tasmanian de√il
    I think you’ll find that most regular commenters are conspicuous by their silence on this subject. I personally loathe the show, which jumped the shark for me when the (in one of the series) the boys sat backwards on the toilets in order to leave a disgusting mess for the girls to clean up. So funny.
    Truly brain-rotting television made for the terminally dense.

  17. Isn’t it ironic how the “quasi-elitist” commenters here like to give everyone else the impression that they have a half-decent taste in TV shows – and now these same people are raving about how excited they are for Big Brother…

  20. Its a big show to make so its no wonder that not much has been decided yet. I wonder if Nine’s bid for the show had anything to do with the fact that Big Brother U.S. was the second best rating show for Summer on FTA? I hope that Nine also consider Friday Night Live as it was one of the best (and most exciting) parts of ths show.

  22. Big Brother was trending in part because it was the final of CBBUK yesterday as well.

    I wish Go or Eleven would show this years Big Brother UK that starts this month.

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