My friend Kyle Brodie has applied to go into the show dont know if he got in or not

Does he have an agent and/or a personality disorder? If not, it's highly unlikely.

He didn't apply this year but he did last year he was too young to go to the audition though

if he didn't apply this year then I suggest he will not be going in

I thought he had

Oh I see

Whether they were planning on putting him in or not, they certainly won't be now this is up. I know from first-hand experience how strict they are about Housemates' names being leaked.

Wasn't helens name leaked prior to the series though? And I though Shahbaz's was too prior to BB7.

I have never watched BB7 so I really couldn't say. As for Helen, I had never heard that, do you have any media articles that say that she was?

I can only go from my own experience, which was that we were all told in no uncertain terms that we'd be dropped from consideration if anyone was heard talking about you in connection with the programme. Unless they've dropped this rule in the last couple of years, but I don't see why they would do that.

I do recall her name being touted for a while before the series launch. Can't say where from but there were lots of rumblings. Looking back, I doubt even her own untimely death would have stopped the producers from putting her in, regardless!

Do you think they expected her to be popular?

I think they knew what they'd be getting from her. Pass to the final aside which was unfortunate for the viewer, they seemed hell bent on keeping her in the house at all costs. All the aggression she showed - many have been kicked out for less. They pretty much made her untouchable and manipulated things to the hilt to keep her at the forefront of everything. Didn't they remove Jale's auto nomination at one point? Yet nothing Helen did pushed them to revoke her pass. Her behaviour, all her warnings .... they wanted her in for the duration. I don't know if they expected her to be popular but they sure wanted her to be .... right down to the final week 'journey - oh hasn't she changed BS'

Great stuff !

In fairness, since moving to Channel 5 they've seemed to want to avoid ejecting people for bad behaviour. There have been others, like Conor, Caroline and Pauline, who really would have been ejected in days of old. The only time they've budged on that was with Daley, and in that instance I feel like their hands were tied because I think even OFCOM would have ruled against them if they'd kept Daley in after that. But generally it seems they don't want to eject anyone if they can possibly avoid it, that's not just Helen.

To clarify, I don't deny that they seemed to really, really want Helen in the House as long as possible, for reasons that I can't quite understand... I think she was one of the main reasons why BB15 was rated so poorly. I just think it's fair to say that avoiding ejecting people is not just a Helen thing. And also I think that it would have been quite difficult to revoke Helen's pass. Jale was let off the Killer Nomination during Girl Power week, but it didn't change things at all - the following week she was back up again. With Helen, if they'd revoked her pass to the final for one week and she'd been evicted that week, it wouldn't have been a pass to the final, would it? I actually didn't want her pass revoked - I didn't think she should have been given it, but even more than that I don't think the producers should be promising people places in the final and then going back on that. That's completely unethical, and I would imagine that there is some rule against that in the guidelines for televised games and competitions. I don't think that sort of twist should ever be introduced, but once they've done it I think they have to stick to their word unless there are really exceptional circumstances, like they have to eject the person. (Of course, if they'd wanted to revoke it in that way Helen gave them multiple opportunities, but that's another conversation!)

Helens definitely was! I remember she was front cover of the Daily star on launch day

That used to be the case, nowadays we more or less know well in advance who is going into the house. Hell, even the HM's know in advance what the house will be like, what the theme is etc.. Gone are the days where the HM's were taken into hiding in a remote place in France (with a chaperone), for 2 weeks or so prior to launch night!

Well, I can only go from my own audition experience, which was only three years ago in 2012, so presumably not that different from today. It is of course possible that they've changed the rules, but why would they?

In terms of leaked housemates being scrapped, it's a grey area. I read about Imogen and Shabhaz prior to BB7, but Rylan was cut from BB8 because he was leaked, so I'm not sure where the land lies here really!

What I imagine happens is that the rules about not talking to the press still apply, unless it's someone that they really, really want, in which case they'll turn a blind eye if it happens. For some reason, they seemed to be really, really keen on getting Helen.

But I can't imagine that it would be the same for most of the Housemates, otherwise we'd know all of their names in advance. They'd all be contacting their local papers and getting stories run on them, or at the very least put something online. I think Helen was the exception. I don't know why they wanted her so badly - the rows she had with people quickly stopped being entertaining, and it couldn't have been to do with Wayne Rooney or Hotel Bravo as she barely talked about that in the House.

Was that the 1st year CH5 took over?
CH5 seem to make up the rules as they go along.

That was when CH4 were running the show.

No, it was the second year. The series that had Luke A and Adam and Deana.

How many of the decisions are made by Channel 5 and how many by Endemol? I would presume that the production team would be the one that would make most of the decisions, but from the comments of a lot of people on here it would appear that it is mostly the broadcaster. Would be interesting to have a conversation about that actually...

.........I would have assumed that CH5 producers have a lot of input into how the programme is run. Certainly any correspondence I have had in the past with the head (at that time), of Enditall (when the programme was broadcast on CH4), stated the channel had most of the say on how the programme was run.
He also assured me that the decision not to have a live feed was down entirely to CH4.

Your best person to ask this question to is oathy, he had a lot of information from the time some of us were trying to have the live feed reinstated.

Ah, I see.

The live feed doesn't actually bother me that much on a personal level, as I never watched it anyway. When I started watching Big Brother, I always said that I'd never watch anything beyond the highlights shows, just so as it doesn't take up all my time. However, I do appreciate that being able to watch the Housemates 24 hours a day is a fundamental part of the format, so I do understand the gripes about it, definitely.

I had the live feed on all the time (in the background), and granted there was a lot of bird tweeting going on, however you could work out by facial expressions/body language what was going on.
Now it's more like a glorified soap with all sorts of things edited to suit the producers agenda.

You used to have split screens too, which the majority of other countries provide, as standard, it's only the UK who have the paltry amount of airtime. *sighs*

It was definitely Rooney, hence the pass to the final during the World Cup. They had no idea in advance how much she'd talk about him but the publicity was there regardless. They also probably had no idea what an evil nutter she'd be and that they'd have to work so hard to keep her in at all and hide so many warnings etc.