does anyone know will it happen this year. We've been waiting since BB2 finished.

And i'll most likely not be as interested (as i would be) if they dont get up and fix this problem this year

If I could, i'd bet that they are not going to. Something about the Irish E4 being broadcast on a different satellite. I would love to see it there, this year. If every other channel can have interactive in Ireland, I don't see why E4 can't.

Every year we hope its gonna work, for BB3 the red button even appeared but the streams were never seen. The reason why is E4 for Ireland is broadcast via a different satellite to E4 UK. The interactive element just won't work via the Irish Satellite. Channel 4 have said in 2002 & 2003 that they have tried to send the service but it would involve changing E4 Eire to another satellite which they are not gonna do just for this one show. So expect no BB5 Interactive in ROI.

How come they don't keep the two of them on the same satellite?

It will not be interactive but I got a ftv card

What good is that?

An FTV card will not get you BB Interactive, and btw C.N.S you can stop trumping about having one, most of us have two.

The reason they are not both on the same satellite is because it was cheaper for C4 to hire out transponder capability on Eurobird which is at the same orbital position as Astra(where we receive Sky Digital services from), so its a money issue.

Heres what i posted in a thread a few months ago about this :

Short answer,.... no.
The reason its not interactive is the main C4 and E4 uk transponder is carried on Astra 2 along with the Interactive feeds for Big Brother viewable on E4 uk only.

E4 Eire is carried on Eurobird. So they arent willing to double up
on Interactive feeds to provide them on Eurobird transponder for what they consider to be a limited irish audience. They are lazy.

The fact that E4 UK(and there is no Eire version of this yet) is now carried on Eurobird alognside E4 Eire i thought might have meant C4 creating a duplicate interactive for this transponder but interactive is not provided on E4+1 UK.
If they would just get off their asses and move E4 Eire to the main transponder or at least move E4 UK to Eurobird then we will never see that happen.

The annoying thing is we had the interactive feeds in BB2, because there was no E4 Eire, we got the UK one, in BB3 the interactive button came up but it would say when you clicked live cameras "This service is not available in Republic of Ireland", by this time of course we were watching E4 Eire, then in BB4 nothing at all. They made all the promises in the world after BB3 that they would bring it to Irish viewers but no they didnt.