Let me remind you that Alex Reid won CBB in January 2010.

The start of Towie, GS, MiC, EotB all coincided with Ch5 taking over the franchise. The first one, Towie, started in October 2010 and the others all much later.

Do people on here genuinely think CH4 would have resisted the lure of the reality stars, when the likes of Alex Reid proved so popular with viewers?

It's not just the HM's that go in. It's everything else. The way the show is edited, the tasks, the way the producers handle "offensive" content. C4 has always been known as an "edgy", or controversial, channel that pushes boundaries. C5 on the other hand has always been known as complete shit.

Basically, C4 know what they are doing, C5 doesn't.

I think Ch4 knows when to drop a show before they have to go down a certain path that Ch5 finds normal too do. But i do think instead of the reailty show stars they would have gone for the YouTube stars.