We'll have to agree to disagree about Nadia and Chantelle, I think they both had that unique storyline that BB likes and I think both were pushed for the win.

But I do agree with what you say about seeing which way the wind blows and editing for that and I def agree about Gina.

Which begs the question why it was different for Aaron in particular (Rachel not so much as she only galloped up as a fave towards the end).

If I take BB2 for example, I think they probably really liked Helen, Brian and Bubble, and then see how they do.

BB12 I think they probably expected Mark, Alex, Tom and Jay to be the popular like winners.

I'm not questioning they had the unique storyline that can make an interesting winner, but they can't push for a winner unless the public seems to actually like them. Nadia didn't feature that heavily at all at the start of BB5 and was actually favourite for eviction when she was initially up the first time. Luckily for her Marco threw a strop that week and viewers evicted him instead. It was the following week when Becki arrived that Nadia emerged as the main front runner.

Chantelle pretending to be a celeb was an interesting little sub plot but apart from that she really didn't stand out that much at first. I remember when Faria was evicted she was asked who she wanted to win and a couple of people in the crowd shouted Chantelle. That was the first I'd heard people suggest her as the winner and then going in to the final week she became runaway favourite.

Yeah she wasn't my fave, but I remember on here everyone was resigned to her being the winner from the start. Maybe the cynicism of DS made her seem a more obvious winner. I can't think of anyone else that series with much chance of winning.

I guess there was a slight early indication that they saw Alex as a possible winner: she got a much better task in the say yes task than anyone else except Heaven. (I don't know why Heaven got the exciting bungee jump and Faye got the impossible tattoo.) But obviously they had given up on Alex before the end: they showed her damaging admission of having short-changed a blind woman three times just to make sure everyone knew it. By then they must have known that no one had any chance except Aaron, so I guess they decided to get rid of her to make a semblance of a fight between Jay and Aaron.



Yes, that's a very good description. Certainly they had no intention of exposing Gina and Dexter to an almost certain mid-series eviction vote, and threw absolutely everything into contriving extra drama for them. But I think they miscalculated: Gina became less and likeable (though I had thought she was far too wily to do a Wolfy) and there was an unexpected surge of sympathy and support for Hazel as they greatly over-egged her villain status.

Yes, kind of true, I can see that, but it was more that in that CBB they didn't show any normal housemate interaction at ALL; it was all shunted aside for some new twist involving Speidi. Allowing them to have private quarters for days at a time was the most irritating thing I can remember on CBB.


I have always thought - and this is supposition - that they didn't want Sam to win. They wanted a feel-good ending to their last series, and a dazzled, humble, grateful person to go into UBB. (Obviously they didn't want someone who would walk out again, but that took them by surprise). Sam was always cynical, and by a couple of weeks in had become positively annoying; his baiting of Corin, for example, was really juvenile. He seemed to have the arrogance of a teenager who has been told just one too many times that he is funny. I really do think that Josie was far more the person they wanted for UBB than Sam was.

If Steve had won the immunity - as he might easily have done - and Josie had then been voted out - as she might easily have been - I think they might have settled for Steve in the UBB house. He would not have sparkled, but he was more popular off the forum than on it; a lot of people would have been pleased, and he would have provided some sympathetic coverage for their swansong.

I am sure that Aaron would have been in the list of possible winners. He really did seem to have it all: he was genuinely witty in a programme where that is quite rare, charming and clever, handsome and articulate; why would they not expect him to win? And if they didn't know then, by the end of day one they did.

As incredible at it seems I don't recall any conversations broadcast or even on the facebook videos between Jay and Louise involving poo. From what was shown a viewer may have had an inkling Jay was was into that kind of stuff but it didn't seem to ever be shown in the context of their "relationship". What we got were several one on one conversations were he kept reassuring how much he liked her and how fit she looked and telling her a fairytale and several schmaltzy moments between them.

It was only after the show were Louise in her eviction and post BB interviews and twitter etc referenced this kind of stuff herself. During the show a lot of his detractors wondered how Louise could like a man like that but after it was often conceded that they were uniquely suited due to their affection for excrement.


Unless BB themselves put forth the voting stats I don't think there will ever be anything concrete but strictly speaking Aaron is not the only source to suggest he won by a large margin. The presenting staff during that series would always seem to point out if it was a close eviction which they did not when Aaron won. Also isn't Mr Marky guy connected with the show? He stated Aaron won by a large margin (he gave an approximate number that was in the similar ballpark to one Aaron quoted) since he was certainly no fan of Aaron's I don't think he'd lie to benefit him.


Big Brother has never really hesitated to show distasteful things in the past.

Bare in mind that when the incident was first referenced by Heaven a lot of people refused to believe it even after Rebeckah backed her up. Part of that could be attributed to them both being viewed as by some as left of the field people but mainly because at that point Jay was an inoffensive background character.

In the early weeks there was literally nothing to suggest that Jay acted in such a manner but several housemates have alluded to the fact similar pranks were pulled with some regularity back then.
The inclusion of moments that showed Jay's crudity seemed to creep in slowly over time and I don't think it was ever done to the extent to give the impression that he acted in such a way to the extent he obviously did. People who frequented boards like this and kept up with various evicted on twitter knew of the freezer incident and view such moments in more accurate context but to regular viewers I don't they'd have seen Jay as "lad" who enjoys a bit of harmless but crude humour.

Case in point the surprise from a lot of his followers when he tweeted the photo of his own poop. I don't think many thought he was the kind of person to do that.


I don't know if you recall or read Aaron's response on here of that saying that while he didn't care for the joke (I don't think he even understood it) he wasn't upset about Jay's joke during his outburst in DR and that that night was very big distortion of events. Make of that what you will


You really think she was only referring to that one comment? I think it's rather obvious she was referring to their relationship overall. Quite a lot of the forum felt that way and even shockingly praised her for voicing this. If what she said was in relation to that one comment I'd argue it makes her comment even worse.

True she did get a fair amount of criticism on twitter but it's never pointed out that she also got an arguably bigger positive response from Aaron detractors and Jay fans etc and she seemed to lap it and retweet it etc. Not that her rather glib apology ever came off as sincere but that kind of behavior showed she was not really sorry and found the whole thing funny.

It never mad any sense anyway. She clearly had used the "right" words to make her point. What was wrong is she temporarily forget you can't say stuff like that outright on television in that conext. She regretted not strongly implying it like the majority of the panelists on BOTS towards the end...and even then I don't think she really regretted it when she was getting positive tweets with people agreeing with her.


Why wouldn't it matter who wins?

It actually baffles me that you believe and argue vehemently that a few winners have been pre-determined by the shows producers but are so closed minded to the possibility there may be more.

There are many reasons why a reality/gameshow specificaly Big brother would prefer a certain housemates to win or come off well beyond the idea that they want to launch a media career . Considering you believe that few have been some I'm sure to some degree you agree. However I don't see why you're so shut off to the idea Big Brother may have (also) had an eye on trying to make a brand out of one of the HMs. Channel 5 had tried to launch two shows already featuring their CBB housemates so clearly they had an interest and why would they sign the regular housemates to their own agency if not to keep them open to appearing on the Northern & Shell owned shows if the felt there was an interest?

With this in mind who do you think out of that year they might have had a specific interest in regards to this? The HM that was almost in Geordie Shore and was good friends with the cast? The guy who appeared on Katie Price's show and the like? Perhaps the one who was going to have his homecoming filmed by Channel 5, hm?


Y'know when debating with you I acknowledge that you may be fuzzy on remembering certain things or perhaps have not kept up with things HMs from this series have publicly said but I'm calling foul on this one. You damn well this is not true.

Several HMs such as Aden, Harry even Jay himself have said that when evicted they were told in no uncertain terms they were told not to publicly discuss the freezer incident under any circumstances.

They removed Heaven's reference to it on the next day re-airing of BOTS and the Demand 5 version of the show. It seems that after Maisy's credible confirmation further evictees were told to not discuss it. What would you call that if not an attempt to keep the event secret.


That's a huge distortion of what he said on here and one I hope is unintentional. Aaron's answers to these questions has always remained the same; For a long time he'd only watched the first week and a bit and felt the show was edited fairly and couldn't understand why people felt otherwise but after sitting down and watching the rest after a few weeks he (and Faye) were shocked as they felt the events and HMs were edited very unfairly.

So as you can see feeling the show was fair in the first few weeks and then went very fast to (in his own words) trying to tear him a new one is not the same as agreeing the show was edited fairly.


There's a certain problem I have with Tom, he gave a very different impression when he talked of this previously.
Not only did he mention on twitter but talked at legnth in his BBgossip interview about how he felt that Aaron and Faye were very unfairly edited both as individuals and a couple and how they deliberately tried to make them look like a dysfunctional couple when they were nothing like that. And yes that Jay was heavily favoured.

So it was kinda shocking for me to read what he put on here. Even when I outright pointed out to him how different his responses were about these subjects I wasn't satisfied with his response. He claimed at the time he hadn't watched a lot of the show and now had watched most though not all - the same amound he claimed he had watched in the aforementioned BBgossip interview.

Now as an Aaron and Faye fan who always felt they were unfavourably edited and Jay was heavily favoured I make no secret I'd prefer to believe Tom's former stance on this subject however if an dispassionate part of me has to say that we should discount most things he says as his credibility is somewhat suspect - and not just in how it related to Aaron, Faye and Jay.


Perhaps you could give me a few specific examples of Aaron being nasty to Faye?


That's an interesting perspective of Faye. Usually the standard argument that Faye was very a victim of Aaron. You're suggesting she not only put up with Aarons "nastyness" but allowed her sister, brother in law and mother to tie up in emotional knots as they strongly believed she was being emotionally abused?

Perhaps you could also give examples of Faye "letting him be nasty" to her. As far as I remember if he said or did something she disagreed with she in never failed to voice her disagreement or walk away or even threaten to end the relationship.

That's why I could never see the whole "Aaron is controlling her" argument. If he was attempting to control her he was doing a very lousy job. To me it seemed a relationship of equals that had a lot of outside strain put on them.

How exactly do you think Jaylou would have fared if they had the same stresses put on them? Although I wouldn't have been much stress on Louise's part. I think she wouldn't have much hesitation cutting Jay loose.

Good Lord, Farscape - I'm certainly not going to re hash old stuff that has been written about at the time of the event in question!! The discussion here is about whether or not producers can force a contestant to the win - so I'm not going to go back to the old Aaron/ Faye versus Jay/Louise arguments which have been done to death.

Suffice to say, if you are right, that Aaron was a winner by a huge margin despite being sabotaged by the produceers - I wonder why he came out to boos and had the most embarassing win of all time? Silence. He walked along clutching that briefcase full of money to silence.

I don't think the producers actually decide who is going to win. They love a good story and they pounce on anything that seems controversial or a love story - and try to get involved in that - but they know that the viewers are savvy to all the tricks now, and will vote against anybody who seems to be favoured by the producers, or vote for the supposed underdogs.

Reading all the theories and suppositions on this thread, it seems to me that it is completely down to the viewers. And that's where the cunning manipulations come in to play. You get the strong forum members, maybe the more articulate ones, those types who go back and copy and paste until their wallpaper brushes are worn out - the amateur academics with all their 'please give your sources' and the downright oldies who think that their opinion is the only opinion because they have been around for thousands of years - if those types hit on a 'winner' then it doesn't take much to throw in a lot of moral indignity, gather up those who want to look morally righteous also, and before you know it, we have a fan-cult who will defend to the death their chosen one. And god help anybody who dares to argue - along comes the clever bullying - the type where they don't actually say it in so many words, the type where only the in-crowd understand the 'joke' - and one by one, the dissenters are picked off. Whereby, a bit of political rabble rousing, a lot of tactical voting, making good use of free online votes - and the winner is decided - not by the producers, not by the great viewing public, who rarely vote anyway, or only put one vote in - but by the fervent, fanatic, forum members who have made a career out of 'winning' reality tv shows.

The winner is never the contestant who gets the most votes, and never the TV channel - it's the anonymous fanatics who live in the internet.

If the reactions of the couple of hundred people that come down for the live shows was in any way reflective of the actual vote then Aaron wouldn't have won at all.

The crowd isn't a representative sample of the viewers.

As I said before, there was nothing about Frankie outside that made me think he'd had been interesting or fun to watch while he was inside, if only we'd seen more of him.

I don't know what makes you think that "THEIR impression was that they had had a whale of a time, laughing and joking and playing about." It never sounded like that to me. I dread to think what a nightmare of tedium the "house games" could have been.

I have to question whether most of the winners had "extremely favourable edits". Back when we had 24/7 live coverage, and so knew more about how favourable or not the edit was, I don't think any of the winners were so different live that "extremely favourable edit" seems like the right description.

The idea that Aaron and Rachel won against the efforts of the producers is questionable as well. Rachel had a pretty good edit, really; and while there clearly were some questionable things in Aaron's, they never stopped him from being popular. So if we're talking of "winners who were determined as the series progressed once producers got an idea of who viewers were warming to", why would that be Jay rather than Aaron? (You don't seem to be saying that Jay was intended as the winner from the start.)




There are a bunch of issues in there, so ... where to begin?

Hmm. Ok, first I'll note that there are two things we need to keep separate: (1) a HM was pushed for the win from day 1, and (2) a HM was chosen or pre-determined as the intended winner from day 1.

After all, the producers might delay pushing until conditions seemed right, even if they'd already decided who they wanted to win. And they might also try to being about such conditions in ways more subtle than pushing. I think that's what happened with Nadia. Marco wasn't evicted until week 5, but Nadia was already getting a favourable edit (at least to the extent of omitting her worse behaviour from 'fight night') before then.

Out of BMLisa's list of "winners the show pushed from day 1", I'd say Rylan and Chantelle may have been pushed from day 1, but Josie, Pete and Nadia imo weren't. The producers might have picked them as the intended winner at the start, perhaps even done some things to help them. I don't know. But I don't think they were being pushed. (An example of help might be the way BB used punishment decisions against the 'plastics' in bb7, which helped get them evicted and so removed them as a potential threat to Pete.)

In any case, I'm sceptical of the idea that the producers would put all their eggs in one basket by having a single 'chosen one' from the start. Lisa's suggestion that "they know a few they think might go the distance and edit accordingly for that storyline" makes more sense; but it could be even more "wait and see" than that.

On the other hand, there clearly is something to something snariek mentioned, the "headline grabbing winner". (And, of course, there can be reasons other than headline-grabbing why a particular winner might be desired; but for simplicity, I'll just say "HGW".)

snariek's suggestion seems to be that the producers wait to see whether the public warms to the HGW and, if so, then begin to push for the HGW to W. Pushing too much or too soon might even make things worse for a housemate. (Perhaps that's what happened with Gina, in line with what snariek said above.) But I don't think they would necessarily wait before doing anything at all to help the HGW; and in any case, the time when the producers start to push can be significantly later than the time when they decide who they want to win.

But also, I think we need to be careful not to slide from

(a) If the producers want a HM to win, they will push that HM (by giving them more air time, a favourable edit, etc)

to

(b) If the producers push a HM, they must want that HM to win.

They are not the same; we shouldn't assume that pushing is necessarily "for the win", and the producers may have pushed Gina (for example) in the expectation that it would ultimately work against her. In bb5, it looked for some time like Stu was being pushed. Does that mean the producers wanted him to win. Some thought so; I didn't. (And I think I was right.)

We should also be careful not to read what we know about the eventual finishing order back into earlier intentions. I don't know who BMLisa thinks was the "expected favourite" BB pushed instead of Rachel in bb9, but I don't think Mikey was especially pushed.

Re Rachel "only galloped up as a fave towards the end", remember that she was profiled as the winner before we even knew she existed (see dj subset's 'Myfanw of the valleys' thread). I thought from the start that she'd likely be popular and predicted in mid August that she'd most likely win, based partly on the way the betting odds (in implied probability form) had been changing.

That really is nonsense. They were constantly shown talking about poo, or appearing to even when they weren't (as I will remind you). There are pages and pages of this kind of thing:

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showt...ay+louise+scat
http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showp...35&postcount=1
http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showp...8&postcount=16
http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showp...7&postcount=31

- showing how firmly BB put the picture into peoples' minds.

Now as for the worst edit of the series, which you appear to have forgotten...

Jay and Louise were shown getting up close and personal in bed. then Jay was shown smelling his finger and saying they smelt of onions. Jamie East was shown on BOTS saying it was disgusting. Which led to hundreds of disgusted posts on here. Typical stuff:

And whole long threads vilifying them: http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showt...+smell+fingers

Until eventually it was pointed out that two completely different incidents had been spliced together: Jay and Louise in bed together, doing nothing visible, and Jay complaining to Louise that his fingers, after cooking, still smelt of onions even after using the hand wash and getting her to smell his fingers. Two completely harmless incidents had been spliced together to make them look gross, and Jamie had pretended to think it was real in order to add verisimilitude.

Eventually even those who disliked Jay and Louise (almost everyone on here) had to admit that this was the case, and an alternative theory, that BB were trying to destroy them to give Alex a better chance (since no one could ever bare to contemplate BB expecting or wanting Aaron to win) replaced it. But it was a terrible, terrible editing decision for Jay and Louise, and if it had been re. Aaron would have caused a tsunami of outrage. BB got away with it because so few people cared about Jay and louise being made to look worse than they were.


Well it probably wasn't. Someone suggested - and it may be true - that the reason they never disclosed the BB12 and BB14 voting figures, but did disclose the BB13 ones, was that BB12 and 14 were such walk-overs that it would just discourage voters from voting in future, whereas BB13 was reasonably close.
By definition, we can't know about things that have not been shown at ALL. But obviously there have been times when something has been handled with a certain delicacy. In all the kerfuffle, for example, in BB9 about someone leaving a used tampon in the shower, they did not show us the grisly item or its discovery. They certainly didn't show us who put it there, which would indeed have been rather yukky.

Jay was never seen as an inoffensive background character. As soon as the Wolfpack was shown - which was towards the end of week 1 - he and Anton were marked men and subjected to a barrage of ridicule and hostility.


]
I don't know what you mean. There were two pranks: Mark getting Jay to crawl round and bark like a dog, and Jay's revenge prank with the freezer. No one has alluded to 'similar' pranks.


Only if they didn't watch BB/ Bots at all. He was shown having a public poo with the door open and talking about it; he was shown talking about having a shit in a kettle; the poo in the freezer incident was discussed on BOTS, who ran a comic sketch about it; Aaron referred to it on BB; and there was all the stuff with Louise, some of it, as I have shown, invented to make them look bad.


I can't make anything of it. We saw what he said in the diary room. There were one or two things Aaron clearly got factually wrong when he came on here: not major things, just things he had obviously forgotten. Maybe this was one of them. I am sure they all remember things less well than the cumulative memory of the entire forum.




It obviously was in relation to that one comment. They showed it, and she commented on it. There was absolutely nothing to suggest that she was making a wider point. I don't know why it would be worse for her to comment on one comment than on his whole relationship, but she was.


Not even arguable. I would say that the response was 90% hostile, and often really vicious.




I don't know why it would baffle you. There are two signs that it matters to BB who wins:

1. That they receive obviously special treatment on the show itself: extra tasks, particularly amusing or dramatic tasks, protection from eviction etc. Of course normally this would be BB just trying to keep the series entertaining: I dont' suppose, for example, they expected Gina or Dexter to win - certainly not both of them - but they had no intention of losing them early on just because they were unpopular in the house.

2. That the tv company or their spin-off media branches actually do use them after the show.

In the case of BB12, no one got any obvious special treatment and no one was used afterwards; Aaron was offered work on BOTS of a special nature, but it all fell apart. Jay and Alex got nothing at all; even Jay's wedding was barely covered in N & S's magazines.

The examples I gave fit both criteria. Jade was given VERY special treatment by BB: she and the other stars of her rtv show came in late and were given special status; the Ch 4 site showed throughout the series, other than in the final week, a large picture of Jade and no one else to illustrate the series. In the case of Rylan and Speidi, they were given countless extra tasks and special privileges, and were almost never off the screens; both immediately went on to Ch 5 work.




Ch 5 have obviously decided to focus post-series attention only on the celebrities. The fact that they don't even do a 'winners story' or 'what the housemates did next' shows how uninterested they are in the ordinary housemates. They seem to routinely sign them up before the show just in case; Aaron said that apart from him and Mark, they were all released from that contract as soon as they came out of the house. (Mark was obviously used a lot on BOTS that year, and they seem to have had some plans for Aaron.) They obviously had no use at all for Jay.


Why in the world would they care about Geordie Shore? It is not a Ch 5 show; if anything, they would be promoting a rival channel if they made any link. I am not sure what use you think they would have had for Jay's homecoming: the only possible use I can imagine was that they intended a 'what the housemates did next' show, then abandoned it. That did used to happen: for example we saw a lot of Shabnam's homecoming back in the day. Presumably you are not suggesting that BB planned a 'what Jay did next' show; it must have been obvious to them very early on that Aaron was going to win.


The only person I can check on this is Aden, who didn't. He said, "I'm not sure if I can discuss this", then went right ahead and discussed it. Presumably he didn't know that it had already been discussed several times on BOTS. When did Harry and Jay say anything about it? What did they say?



Of course they did. The next day version is shown before the watershed, and stuff is very often cut out.

It's an odd kind of secret, that is kept by discussing it on BOTS, showing a reference to it on the highlight show, then illustrated via a 'comic' sketch on BOTS.

I'll find it. But you are wrong. He was asked if the show had been fairly edited, and he said yes, he thought so.




Yes, all true. And certainly by the Ch 5 era I think the 'headline grabbing winner' is unimportant because the headlines are so very few anyway. None of the Ch 5 housemates (in normal BB) have made any headlines at all except Daley, and duty articles in the Star. Their priority is surely to keep some drama going, not to contrive a winner; they really don't seem to have any interest at all in who wins.
No, not at all. For quite a long time he was actually bottom of the polls. He seemed both dull and rather unpleasant. Over time he established his own personality - abrasive but funny; (I never liked him much, but a lot of people did); he benefited I think from an anti-Rex-and-Darnell vote, since he was so clearly not in any kind of gang with them, and his blunt way of talking to them appealed to those who disliked them.

Hmmmmm I don't know who I think was the preferred winner in BB9 but Rachel and Aaron did have a similar sort of petulant child welcome on BOTS, it was clear they weren't as celebrated winners.

I certainly agree I don't think Mikey was massively pushed, although much was made of the chilli incident and how fabulously hilarious it was which I couldn't understand, it was a chilli???!

I say this not as a Rachel fan as well, I wanted Rex to win, although I do admit when it was down to Rachrl and Mikey, Rachel was my preference.


As I said before I think the vast majority Of the time they have a few they like in each series and edit for that. I doubt they care who wins at all most of the time as they can just edit the story to make it a nice rounded off ending.

The only times that didn't happen were for Rachel and Aaron so I can only come to the conclusion that something else was going on. Either that or the producers/presenters/guests are just unable to hide if they don't like a winner and that's luckily only happened twice, with Aaron and Rachel.

Can't multi quote on my phone but Veri I didn't see in your reply if you do think Rachel and Aaron's wins were a different feel or whether you feel they were celebrated accordingly?

Well I agree that the housemates we saw on live feed were the same as the housemates we saw on HL shows, but I still think it's possible to have an extremely favourable edit regardless of a live feed. If a 30-60 min HL show focuses on the nice/funniest moments of a certain housemate, and leaves out the more unpleasant moments, well that's a favourable edit is it not? Bearing in mind that a lot of viewers didn't watch live feed religiously, or at all, I think the HL show has a much greater influence on the majority of viewers than live feed has ever had. On top of that, as hard as it may be to believe now, Sky TV and the internet weren't essentials for a lot of households back in the days of earlier BB so not everyone had easy access to live feed.

The most fundamental thing about the HL shows though is the DR entries. We never see them in live feed but they have a massive influence on viewers and can completely shape the way a housemate comes across. A lot of people cite Victor's DR entries as the main turning point for him where he started to gain a lot of fans. If BB chose not to show that comedic softer side to him he probably would have just seemed cold and angry the whole time. The whole "Nadia's a man" incident over the garden wall could have been seen as a fairly insignificant event if you just watched it on live feed. On the HLs though they actually show Nadia in the DR afterwards to let the viewer know that she did in fact hear what was said, and that it did upset her quite a lot. I'd be surprised if even the most extreme Nadia hater didn't feel just a little bit sorry for her at that point, and those are the moments that can influence a lot of voters.

Also, I think it's worth noting that Victor has said himself on here that Shell was a lot more manipulative than she came across, and suggested that the wedding task argument was edited in such a way to ensure he came across as the bad guy. Although I never watched that particular night live myself, I did turn on the feed the next morning and the scrolling messages at the bottom of the screen were littered with "Get Victor out", "Victor is a bully" etc. messages. Up until that point the majority of hate was directed towards Jason and it seemed like a sure thing he'd go, but all of a sudden Victor was favourite to be evicted before that particular HL show had even aired. So either Victor is lying, and he did come across exactly how he was shown in the HLs, or even the live feed can manage to hide things from viewers and be "edited" in a certain way.


No I think BB12 is one of the few series where it was hard to spot any potential winner at the start but it definitely emerged as Aaron early on as he actually was involved with stuff worth showing. I think though, probably due to the series being short on significant storylines, it became easy to edit him as some kind of snake regarding him and Faye. He claims that the "family and friends" that nominated him were encouraged by production to do so, and to use his supposed mistreatment of Faye as an excuse. Whether that's true or not we can never know but I certainly wouldn't doubt it. Out of the remaining housemates at that point Jay seemed the most popular based on the VTS results. He certainly seemed to have more fans than haters at that point and it would be very easy to edit him as the "loveable" Geordie who "wears his heart on his sleeve" blah blah blah. You're right it didn't stop Aaron being popular, but it genuinely seemed to me that if they focused more positively on Jay and negatively on Aaron in the final weeks that they thought in the end Jay could pip it and they'd have some good conquers evil storyline, especially as those two seemed to be pitted against each other a lot. Add to that the fact that Jay always got the best reception from the eviction crowds, even when he was beaten in the votes by more than one housemate, and you could guarantee he was going to leave the house to an eruption of cheers on finale night and the show would end on it's "feel good" winners moment.


I do definitely agree that they wait a while to put a positive focus on particular housemates. In Nadia’s case she really didn’t do seem to do much the first two weeks. The first time I personally pegged her as a potential winner was when she was wrestling Stu as Michelle and Emma were in the bedsit watching. It was just quite a funny moment and her popularity started to build from there. I don’t think it really snowballed though until the week Becki came in though. Apart from Rylan I don’t think they’ve ever tried to target a certain housemate as the winner as early as day 1 (I would still even disagree with Chantelle). Just to clarify what I meant in my original suggestion is that after gaging the reaction of viewers producers think “ok this housemate is starting to prove popular so let’s continue to build on that”. Especially so if the housemate in question could be a potentially “interesting winner”. If the fanbase continues to grow they will only build on it further. That way they get their HGW but they’re also keeping viewers happy.

Although I don’t think it was the case, I do understand why some people would consider Pete as the “chosen” winner from day one as there seemed to be a lot of focus on him from the very beginning, but that would have inevitably drifted if viewers grew tired of him. That was the case with Kathreya. I’m re watching BB9 at the minute and it’s amazing to see how heavily she’s featured in the first few weeks. When Sylvia is asked who she wants to win during her eviction interview the crowd is all shouting Kat. There wasn’t much else to her apart from the “happy house” stuff. At least Pete had his dislike of the plastics, romance with Nikki, obsession from Lea, that there were a few different directions they could focus on with his “character” and all of them would make him come across well.

I do think in Gina’s case that producers were trying to assist her towards the win. It would have given Ch5 their first female (non celeb) winner, and although I wanted Sam to win over her, I will admit she would have been a much more interesting winner. As I said before there was just no way she would come across well over the whole Hazel thing unless they left that footage out completely. That’s why so much focus shifted towards Sam so suddenly as soon as Gina lost a lot of fans.


I do agree Rachel got a pretty good edit, but it wasn’t great either. There was still a lot of mention from the other housemates about her being boring and sitting on the fence. This was continued on from the guests/presenters on BBLB (as I mentioned before I think that’s also a big indication of who producers are favouring as the winner). In fact for Rachel’s interview on BBLB they literally made her sit on a fence for the whole thing, which I thought was a bit disrespectful. BBLB seemed to love Mikey though for some reason. Don’t get me started on how BOTS used to talk about Aaron!

I don't remember Rachel's post-BB BBBM. It was obvious that Davina didn't like her. I think Aaron's BOTS was unfortunate. It was a hideous year for BOTS and I genuinely don't think Pete Burns said a single nice thing about anyone at all. (He did say that he was told to stir things when he was recruited.). So he wasn't a very appropriate person to greet the new winner; but it wasn't particulary special treatment for Aaron, it was just more of the same. It does seem from what Aaron and the people themselves have said that Emma liked Aaron but Brian didn't.

I'm pretty sure only Rachel has had the honour of being jeered at by the presenter the year AFTER her BB.


Yes, definitely, all rtv shows seem to identify 'stars' pretty early on, and edit them in accordingly; they also enhance them by giving them extra tasks/ trials.

I do think that in BB12 the big story was intended to be a Jay/ Aaron rivalry, and everything has to be seen through that light. Alex may have been spotted early on as a good winner in the Sophie Reade style, slipping between the rival groups to take the crown; but they were happy to throw her to the wolves in the end when it was clear that she wasn't going to do it.

The 'say yes' task was an early indicator of the way they saw things. Alex was given the 'hilarious' task, and on the face of it Aaron was completely thrown away: 'stand back to back with Louise for a couple of hours' was just ridiculous. But it works if you imagine them seeing Louise as the desired trophey desired by both men; they hoped that Jay, volatile throughout, would have a big strop about Aaron getting all that up-close-and-personal time with Louise. When Louise was obviously not going to work as a plot device, they contrived all kinds of other ways to stir things. The birthday presents stunt must have worked better than they ever dreamed of: they obviously hoped for something of the kind, but could not rely on Aaron being SO angry, then Jay being so angry, and the whole thing going on and on. (I hated it; I thought it was an unpleasant manipulation of peoples' ordinary feelings to make almost everyone look bad.)



Yes, that's very true and well put. Various housemates have tried to use the diary room as a personal blog, probably far more than we see, as BB seem to have got a bit fed up with the concept. I have got particularly jaded about 'hilarious' diary room entries; they seem so calculated and contrived. Luke Marsden made me want to throw up when he ran importantly into the diary room to broadcast his latest thoughts.

It is interesting btw that Aaron said that Luke M was his favourite housemate, because in some ways Luke was an unsuccessful prototype for Aaron. These are three posts by Aaron:




Poor Luke did BB much too young: he had nothing like the social skills to carry this kind of thing off. Aaron would never in a million years have been caught trumpeting "This will definitely make the highlights!" or that maddening reiteration of "Airtime! Airtime!" But Aaron recognised what Luke had been trying to do, and had the maturity and intelligence to make it work. His own diary room entries were extremely good: charming, amusing, sophisticated and neatly hitting the exact spot where making fun of someone would shade from amusing to bitchy. I genuinely think the reason Brian Dowling seemed to dislike him is that he found him intimidating, and the reason Marcus Bentley did like him was that he was old enough and confident enough not to.

I think the truth may be somewhere between the two. Victor gave his perception of what had gone on, but that doesn't mean his perception was objective. It seems obvious that he resented what had happened: Shell had used a startling expletive towards him, and HE had been the one accused of bullying.

I certainly think he was the front runner by the end of day one. The conversation with Rebeckah destroyed her and started the whole fan thing for him. Obviously he didn't have it in the bag at that point: if Mark had not exploded them imploded I think he was in with a chance at least. A much nicer Alex might have done it. But really, he never had a serious challenger; the whole of the second half of the series seemed to be an attempt to conceal that fact.

But BB12 WAS vote to save, and Aaron had already beaten Jay twice on a vote to save, so that can't be true. And I don't think Jay was edited to look 'loveable' at all: he came over as a massive grump a lot of the time, dim, inarticulate, moody and coarse. I do think that Aaron's fans (I don't mean you, but in general) are inclined to want to have their cake and eat it re. Jay: "He seems really horrible! And so positively edited!" I have described above one occasion when he was outrageously badly edited, with two completely different things, both completely unobjectionable, spliced together to make him look really sordid and unpleasant. I can only suggest that by that time - it was either in or just before the final week - they no longer saw any mileage in trying to pretend it was a genuine competition and were willing to kick Jay and Louise to the kerb.


But they had absolutely no reason to suppose that Jay was in with a chance. They may not have anticipated how poorly Aaron's reception would go, but if anyone on the production team liked Jay, they must have realized it was game over long before the final week.



Yes, that's very reasonable. Though I think there is a strong case for Jade in CBB5 as well (not on day one, but from the day she came into the house.) The problem with BB12 was that the audience on BOTS (who tend to be substantially the same people day after day, and who are small in number ) and the people in the eviction crowds were so adrift from the actual voters. It gave a weird, lop-sided feeling to it. Obviously the bots audience do sometimes seem to take against someone, as they did for a while with Dexter last year, but that was the most discordant yet. (To be fair, by the end, they didn't seem to like anyone at all; I can remember both Jay and Alex being booed and ridiculed by them.)



I don't think it was that black and white. They saw Gina, Dexter and Hazel as the people generating stories for them, and wanted to keep them in. (Dan as well I think; I bet they were really pissed off when they put Sophie and Sam up for eviction and found that Dan was the one who went.) Hazel obviously could only be retained for so long, but they had no intention of losing Dexter or Gina prematurely. I genuinely don't think they cared who won, other than that they must have had their own personal preferences; there is no reason to believe that any winner would have brought them any publicity at all, other than a duty splash in the Star.

He claims though that he spoke to a member of the editing team that told Victor they were pretty much forced to edit the show so that we didn't get a true representation of what happened that night, and to ensure he looked like the bad guy. It seems though people had already wanted him out over Jason though before that particular HL show had aired so unless he is lying that would suggest things can even be covered up on the live feed.


Well the Faye v Louise eviction was only a week before the final and that just seemed like team Aaron and team Jay facing off, and team Jay won. Plus, Faye had already beaten Jay, who in turn went on to finish two places higher than Louise. Yet Louise beat Faye in a VTS. Harry and Faye had beaten Jay in a VTS but were both beaten by him in a subsequent votes. So I don't see how it was simply impossible for the producers to think Jay could beat Aaron in the final.

Dim and inarticulate are usually seen as two massively positive traits in BB if previous popular contestants are anything to go by, and yes he was made to look grumpy at times but not as much as Aaron was.

I do like you offering a lot of hard facts, but to be honest I think you are still only showing how uncertain the runner up places were. I do appreciate that I am putting a lot of reliance on what aaron said a member of the production team said to him, but IF that was so he won by a huge margin. And they had what we do not, the actual voting figures; combined with the big margin he had in the polls throughout, there really is no reason to suppose the was ever under threat. Of course the whole argument falls down if we discount what Aaron said, since polls are often quite wrong. (It is always unnerving btw to discuss Aaron, since you never know when he will suddenly pop up in a thread sounding extremely cross. ) But still, if Aaron really did have three quarters of the total final votes, as he claims, it must have been obvious that he was absolutely miles ahead, and the only question was where the others would place. Alex vs Jay might be a mildly interesting statistic.


I don't think so. Every time Jay got into a foul mood they found a way to give him a chicken to stop him eating one of the other housemates.

I would have been properly surprised to see Aaron punching a pillow on the ground, complete with inarticulate cries of rage. I think most of us would.

Out of curiosity I had a look at what some other finalists were asked on BOTS to see if Aaron's question about being bullied at school was what you might call an outlier.

To my surprise, louise was asked if she was looking forward to being covered in shit when Jay was evicted, and whether she minded him sleeping with ladyboys.

To my somewhat greater surprise, Tom was asked if he preferred 'arse or vag'.

It just confirms my memory that the 2011 BOTS was a general abomination.

I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if Aaron won by a landslide but that doesn't mean that the production couldn't have believed Jay had a chance at beating Aaron before the phone lines opened for the winner vote. It was the week prior that Aaron's role as some kind of villain was really cemented following the face to face nominations, and presumably the eviction that followed between Faye and Louise wasn't particularly close as when it is it's usually mentioned in the eviction interview. If Jay's closest ally managed to beat Aaron's closest ally by a comfortable margin then it's understandable to think that the vote between Jay and Aaron in the end would be a close one, and that Jay has a strong chance at winning. The vote can change completely in a week, or even overnight. Jay was beaten by Jem of all people in a VTS before finishing ahead of Harry and Faye the following week. Bear in mind a lot of people don't vote until the final also.


How many times were moments like that involving Jay actually shown though in comparison to moments with Aaron sitting on his own sulking. I think Jay's "hilarious" moments such as him shaving his arsehole in the mirror, or taking a loud shit with the door open were shown a lot more than the moments of him being threatening or losing his temper.

I do agree that Louise beating Faye was a bit of a curveball. But I see Jemma being saved as being the opposite: it was so very obviously an anti-Jay-and-Anton vote.

I think it is endearing btw that Aaron has said almost nothing but nice things about Anton. Anton's game didn't come off, and Aaron's did, and there is something refreshingly courteous about emphasising the positive side of Anton and not giving into the temptation to gloat.




But he probably DIDN'T lose his temper that much. The truth about BB12 - often overlooked because it was so divisive on here - is that most people got on with most other people for most of the time. We did see Jay get into a humungous temper after Harry's banana prank - he was a man who really couldn't cope without food - but on the whole, people don't seem to have had a problem with Jay. I don't think Heaven or Tom ever had any time for him, and Harry definitely didn't after the banana aftermath, but he was a sociable type, and was almost always seen in the middle of some chatty group or other. Anton and Aden really liked him, Faye liked him until his closeness to Jemma and her closeness to Aaron became problematic, and obviously Jemma liked him. The highly unwise money deal beween Aaron and Jay surely showed two men on friendLY terms - not best friends, but at ease with each other. When Aaron was announced as the winner, Jay sounded genuinely pleased for him.

Obviously positions hardened outside the house, and Jay made rather an ass of himself with his - "I don't want Aaron's money! I wouldn't take it if he offered it! He took my money, the bastard!" - but that was afterwards, when Jay had been fatally influenced by friends and family, who loathed Aaron, as he had never up until then done himself.

It does strike me that if whoever devised the birthday presents stunt predicted the outcome - that Aaron would refuse, the other two would go ahead, and it would end in a bitter row - he or she was a mean piece of work but a really brilliant psychologist.

Do you think I was saying there can't be a favourable edit when there's a live feed?


What are you trying to say there? It almost looks like your're implying that since Shell used "a startling expletive", SHE should have been the one accused of bullying.


Why are you going to such dubious lengths about bb5 to argue for something that should be obvious without any such effort? Of course things can be "covered up' in the live feed, simply by not showing them. Lots of things aren't seen in the live feed. It shows only one camera's view at a time; we don't see what's going on in other parts of the house; and that's before we even get to the sometimes frequent or lengthy sound and picture cuts.

Anyway, I am familiar with what Victor has posted, I think his points were discussed well enough at the time(s), and I hope we don't have to go into it all again.

I think you are missing something that is, I suspect, the key to such results as Jem beating Jay.

When did Harry beat Jay? I think you must mean week 6, the same week Jem beat Jay: the week Anton went. The only other time I can find Harry against Jay is week 7, when Harry was evicted.

What happened in week 6 is that Aaron's supporters were determined to get Anton out. Since it was voting to save, that meant saving everyone who might have gone instead. (Jay was assumed to be safe, leaving Anton as the only target.) They were so determined, and took such good advantage of cheap Facebook votes, that they 'over-saved' Jem so that she had the 2nd highest number of votes. Also, Aaron wasn't up that week, while Jay was. Aaron's supporters therefore didn't have to worry about saving him; Jay's might be reluctant to give any help to Anton.

Faye still had considerable support from 'team Aaron' in week 7. But by week 8, the week of Faye vs Louise, that had changed. You say it "seemed like team Aaron and team Jay facing off". Not to me! And not to quite a few of the others who supported Faye. Aaron's fans were much less keen to support Faye that week; some even thought it would be best for Aaron if Faye was evicted. There are various reasons for the decline in support. Some are because of the way Aaron and Faye's relationship was seeming by that time (as presented in the edit); but it was also the week before the final, and there was a tendency for people to want to save their time and money that week, so they could go all out for Aaron in the final.

Also, it wasn't a bad time for Faye to go (as it turned out, it worked well for her to be evicted then). So even some of her own supporters (perhaps a bit weary from the efforts of week 7) may not have made a maximal effort.

(It doesn't make much difference to me how close or not the vote between Faye and Louise was, btw, but it could have been pretty close without it being so close that the closeness would be mentioned.)


There isn't any good evidence that Aaron's or Jay's level of support changed by very much over the weeks we're discussing here. I think what week 6 shows is that even when Aaron's supporters weren't making their strongest effort (since he wasn't even up), they could still outvote Jay's supporters (who presumably were trying to save him that week) -- even when voting for someone (Jem) they didn't like.

Wasn't that when Rachel ended up saying she'd give 10k to charity?

They were NOT "constantly shown talking about poo."

And I notice that you introduced the links as if they were going to show that it was constantly shown, but (since they don't) switch to having them show "how firmly BB put the picture into peoples' minds".

Not that they actually show that either. (It often doesn't take much to get something into people's minds.)


It seems you may have forgotten it too (I certainly did), since it would have made sense for you to make a point of it earlier in the thread, and you didn't.

But it would be interesting to see what the edit looked like. I don't suppose there's a handy clip?


Well that's not true. For example, we know about the freezer incident, and it wasn't show at all.

(I remember you saying Aaron mentioned it in the DR, but that still isn't showing it, and that isn't how we knew about it either.)


Maisy (and perhaps others) alluded to other questionable things Jay did that also weren't shown. I don't think it matters whether they were precisely pranks or not.


As I said earlier, unless she hadn't been watching the show and had been given the quote without any context, I think it's reasonable to see it as a comment that wasn't about just that one remark.


I don't think those are the only things that could go with it mattering to BB who wins. Do you think it matters to BB only if there are plans to use the HM in other shows?


When was the poo in the freezer incident discussed on BOTS?

You said BB's explanation for not showing it was that it was distasteful. But they wouldn't have to show it to let us kniw about it. They had to throw out food and have the freezer professionally cleaned. If Jay wasn't given a formal warning, he should have been. And viewers should have been told. (Indeed, I'm inclined to think that we should always see the formal warnings being given.) Instead, they acted like it hadn't happened, then tried to make light of it once it had been credibly confirmed by Maisy.


Have you found it? I'm too tired to even remember Aaron's forum name.

In any case, as I said before, if Aaron thinks the show was fairly edited, I would wonder why, since it pretty obviously wasn't. Perhaps he thought they all suffered equally; I don't know

I'll have a look through Aaron's replies. He may have said that on here, but him and Faye most definitely didn't on their twitcam.

They'd watched up to Faye's eviction, I believe, when they did the twitcam and Aaron specifically stayed that first two weeks he couldn't understand why his fans were cross about the edit but that it changed as time went on and he did feel that him and Faye's relationship was edited unfairly and he could see why people were cross.

In the Twitcam him and Faye said they felt Tom was edited unfairly and Aaron also said Faye was given a poor edit and Faye said her relationship with Jem.

Neither of them were bitter about it, they seemed matter of fact like they accepted it was part of the show but they certainly didn't feel they were edited fairly.