The producers should use DS as guide of what NOT to do to appeal to a mass audience.

You wanted "normal housemates". Then complained they were dull, not entertaining, not rowing enough, not engaging.

You didn't want "rows". Despite the most recent CBB delivering explosive viewing and ratings, you were sick of the arguments. Yet without them, ratings have basically collapsed and the producers have sunk to a desperate 4-way eviction low.

You want "back to basics", but watching things play out without interference has been about as interesting counting grains of sand in the Sahara desert.

Seriously, DS is wildly out of touch with general viewing tastes and expectations for this type of reality show. I hope they raid a local mental ward for the four replacement housemates and never rely on DS for a sense of viewer perspective again.

Have you learnt your lesson?

Most the HMs in this year had agents.

It's not the HMs.

The show only launched with 1.8m compared to last year's 2.1m+. The only way was down. This series should have been extensively promoted.

It's on too early. May is not big bro season. July and August is.

The housemates are shit though. To be fair.

True, true. But they were horrible last year too and yet the ratings sustained an average similar to BB12 and BB13.

I switched off because the show is a total borefest this year with no interesting dynamics between the housemates to keep me interested.

There is a four way eviction.

OF COURSE it's the housemates.

The normal housemates works so much better with the USA format.

The UK just are fed up with voting and I think it's time we brought the game show aspect to our version.

BB has always started in May hasn't it?
I much prefer "normal " people. Otherwise you end up with wannabe "promotion girls". I'm thoroughly enjoying this series.

The HM's aren't the problem, it's the show that is the problem. You wanna know why viewing figures are down ? it's the constant meddling. Last year made people switch off, this year is suffering for the joke of a series we had last year.

I'm intrigued by the suggestion that the producers' casting decisions were strongly influenced by this forum.

Is there any evidence for this?

It is not "right" big brother without only normal people.

If it is to be tacky "game show" big brother then stick in anyone, have twists galore and change the rules daily, great fun (not), but basically a waste of time.
Just watch Bullseye, it is finished quicker.

Thank you for the insight, how did the constant meddling effect the most recent series of CBB ratings..?

Educate me.

I'm not sure it's all a h/m problem. I feel the biggest problem is in the editing and the producers.

Take tonight the first 45 minutes were the task, when I think they should be showing the house conversations. The task showed us half the house don't like Joel and to an extent Cristian and yet we haven't seen how the other h/m reached that conclusion. The show has become confusing and the lack of any live feed makes that problem worse.

There was mention previously that feedback received from last years show highlighted the general feeling of negativity that it promoted as a bad thing and that people would prefer an upbeat series.
Seeing as DS members are always keen to submit their opinions to C5 I guess you could say that this forum has played its part in the show that we now have.

CBB is a totally different beast these days.

There is just no interest in regular BB left anymore.

Whether those decisions were or were not influenced by this forum is immaterial. A vocal portion of this forum has requested "normal housemates" for great many years.

"Normal" is open to interpretation, but as normal goes, we have McDonalds Jack, Cafe Harriet etc among the usual spattering of models. More importantly, these are mostly 'normal', everyday personalities, mostly placid, calm, considered.

It has made coma-inducing television. I appreciate there are the odd "I'm enjoying this show more than anything BB related for years" sorts of posts, but seriously - it is crap TV. Those are exactly the sort of delusional posts which are out of line with the general viewing public. It's great that a small minority on DS may enjoy this, but it will get the show canned if it continues - and sort of proves my point. A vocal portion of DS is totally out of synch with what the majority want to watch and expect from BB.

The fact there are very few upset with the twist shows how disengaged most viewers are with these housemates. Imagine this twist during BB7 or 5? The forum would go into MELTDOWN.

I love the housemates this year and personally find them more interesting than the usual lot.

It's just a shame we don't see enough footage to truly get to know them.

Even if they did, the interesting characters always get voted out first so they wouldn't last five minutes.

Also they shouldn't have released the names of the HM's before the show started. This was a mistake and a half. It killed the launch stone dead. I'm not surprised the viewing figures were down.

I agree they been up against BGT, Eurovision and a lot of BB viewers have been doing exams, bad idea to put it on early.

I hated what they did last year.

A well produced gameshow can be fun even if the contestants themselves aren't that entertaining.

The problem with BB in recent years is they put all their hopes on the housemates and don't pay enough attention to the actual weekly structure and design of the gameshow itself.

How presumptuous. You don't have any idea what I wanted.

I'd love for the UK version to adopt the USA format. I think it would just be a refreshing change and it'll be interesting to see British houseguests actually play a game.

I feel like American format big brother would work well on Itv.

Normal housemates doesn't mean we wanted housemates as dull as this lot. Look at BB3...those housemates were normal and definitely not dull. Are they even all 'normal' anyway? There seems to still be a few fame hungry people in there. I don't believe the producers have paid any attention to this forum for years either. Not since the latter years of the Channel 4 era was there evidence to suggest they did.