They deride Hopkins for having an opinion and tell her that there is nothing wrong with being nice and placid and vanilla whilst enjoying the ratings boost that her and Hilton's combative nature brought to the show.

If everyone had done like Katie Price, been vanilla and spent all day in their pyjamas, sitting on the kitchen stool with crap on their face, no one would have tuned in. The show would have been boring, no one would have watched it and their ratings would be very low.

The moralistic posturing of 'can't you all get along' and 'why do you have to be so nasty' is a little rich coming from a show that does it's best to encourage conflict.

The housemates are paid good money but really, they aren't that magnetic that people will tune in day after day to watch them just drinking tea and walking round the garden. People want to see emotion, tension and drama. Hilton and Hopkins brought that and encouraged it out of others.

Throwing them on the fire with a dismissive 'you're so nasty' is a little duplicitous from a show that has benefited so much from the drama and fizz that they brought.

Unfortunately they didn't throw Hopkins on the fire. I would have paid to see that. They still seemed to be pushing the 'aw you've got a soft side really *giggle*' nonsense on BBOTS even when she was behaving like one of the mouthy 'chavs' she professes to so despise.

They would've hated the likes of kp winning had she not carried so much media weight, its only because of her persona that they're glad of the publicity. However someone like Katie who offers very little would normally be pushed out by bb.

This.

This is similar to what i was saying the other day. Perez got ripped apart on BBBOTS even though he gave them good ratings and entertainment, they have showed him no respect what so ever since he left the show.

I disagree completely.

I don't understand this idea some have that holding a controversial opinion is the only way we'll get drama between housemates. For example, the Jeremy incident had nothing to do with either of the house WUMs (Katie H and Perez). A lot of the time, for me, the drama around Katie H and Perez felt so attention-seeking and insincere.

I would hazard a guess that, without Katie H or Perez, whilst we may have had a calmer show, it would have been a more balanced one with a lot more laughs and a lot less sniping.

Personally, that kind of show would have been far more entertaining for me, because after all, entertainment is subjective. It's cool if you disagree, but you can't assume everyone will agree with your idea of entertainment, I'm afraid. I found this series incredibly hard to watch at times and would have welcomed some scenes of garden walking and tea drinking

And you believe that the makers didn't engineer situations to encourage friction?

Granted the show might have been more balanced without them but it would have had far less viewers.

Tuning in to watch Katie Price talking about another girl tasting her pussy on a guys chap isn't entertaining, it's juvenile.

I didn't say that I don't believe the producers don't manipulate, and I didn't say I find Katie P's sex talk entertaining! Don't make assumptions

I simply disagree with the idea that any housemate who doesn't get involved in unnecesary, attention-seeking combat is "vanilla", and the idea that all viewers want to see tension and drama. I don't, at least not at the level that it happened this series.

I'm aware I'm probably in the minority and I've no issue with that - like I said in my previous post, not everyone is going to agree with your idea of entertainment. That applies to all of us.

Fair comment.