Forget the makeover shows. Hold the antique hunts. The uber-format on TV these days is 'conflict TV' and BB6 is giving viewers exactly what they want.
It struck me this morning watching a trailer for some dreadful looking programme where 'nightmare neighbours' are to be locked up together, presumably to the point where the ultra-loud music played by one guy will annoy the tearaway kids so much that they'll take it out on the bossy know-it-all...you can see exactly what's coming.
This is just the latest in a long line of what I'd term as 'conflict TV' shows, the wife swaps and holiday exchanges and the like, where the whole point is to get to the moment where one party is screaming and swearing at the other. The thing is, we've had so many extreme confrontations on TV that the bar is constantly raised. The reason for watching Gordon Ramsay is waiting for the moment when he calls some hapless French chef a ******* ****; the reason for watching child psycholgy shows is to gasp at the four year old using exactly the same words as Gordon. A reasoned discussion about how much salt to put in the soup or whether a child should still be sucking her thumb at six years old just won't do it any more.
The same must be true of BB this year. People have often said that they can't believe how awful the characters of the chosen individuals are but it's been done for a reason:
1. Because Endemol know that people are spending money to vote HMs out rather than keep them in so it's in their interest to engender as much hatred as possible (and if you doubt the levels of hatred just look at the comments on this forum). Lesley, Saskia, Maxwell, Science and Vanessa have all become hate figures and thus income-generators in their own way.
2. Because they also know that conflict, the more extreme the better, makes for TV ratings. Let's be honest the moments people are going to be talking about from this year's BB are things like Saskia losing it completely with Makosi or Craig and Science screaming at each other, not the gentler pleasures of the BB olympics.
I'm not saying this in a 'holier than thou' way; for example Vanessa's eviction was almost unwatchable but I watched it four times because it was totally gripping TV. The only reason for that was she had become so disliked as an HM.
But it just makes me wonder where it's going to stop. If they bring in a whole load of nice reasonable people next year people will accuse the show of being boring and viewing figures will drop. But how do you keep raising the stakes? Unless you fill the house next year with axe-wielding psycopaths I'm not sure how much further you can take it. Maybe BB6 is the end of the line when it comes to the 'conflict TV' format?
It struck me this morning watching a trailer for some dreadful looking programme where 'nightmare neighbours' are to be locked up together, presumably to the point where the ultra-loud music played by one guy will annoy the tearaway kids so much that they'll take it out on the bossy know-it-all...you can see exactly what's coming.
This is just the latest in a long line of what I'd term as 'conflict TV' shows, the wife swaps and holiday exchanges and the like, where the whole point is to get to the moment where one party is screaming and swearing at the other. The thing is, we've had so many extreme confrontations on TV that the bar is constantly raised. The reason for watching Gordon Ramsay is waiting for the moment when he calls some hapless French chef a ******* ****; the reason for watching child psycholgy shows is to gasp at the four year old using exactly the same words as Gordon. A reasoned discussion about how much salt to put in the soup or whether a child should still be sucking her thumb at six years old just won't do it any more.
The same must be true of BB this year. People have often said that they can't believe how awful the characters of the chosen individuals are but it's been done for a reason:
1. Because Endemol know that people are spending money to vote HMs out rather than keep them in so it's in their interest to engender as much hatred as possible (and if you doubt the levels of hatred just look at the comments on this forum). Lesley, Saskia, Maxwell, Science and Vanessa have all become hate figures and thus income-generators in their own way.
2. Because they also know that conflict, the more extreme the better, makes for TV ratings. Let's be honest the moments people are going to be talking about from this year's BB are things like Saskia losing it completely with Makosi or Craig and Science screaming at each other, not the gentler pleasures of the BB olympics.
I'm not saying this in a 'holier than thou' way; for example Vanessa's eviction was almost unwatchable but I watched it four times because it was totally gripping TV. The only reason for that was she had become so disliked as an HM.
But it just makes me wonder where it's going to stop. If they bring in a whole load of nice reasonable people next year people will accuse the show of being boring and viewing figures will drop. But how do you keep raising the stakes? Unless you fill the house next year with axe-wielding psycopaths I'm not sure how much further you can take it. Maybe BB6 is the end of the line when it comes to the 'conflict TV' format?
