Which was 2000?

Besides the fact they now know about the press attention they'll get.

Ones I've noticed:

1) People were surprised that Claire in BB1 had a boob job. People now ask if big boobs are genuine

2) Both sexes share the same bedroom without any worries (except for snoring)

3) More people seem to smoke

4) Men seem to use more products

5) Age range is more diverse

6) No one makes bread anymore

7) Big Brother has developed a sense of humour (loved the green bottle song and the date with Anthony)

I have noticed 2, 3, 5, 6, 7 and another one... more people get booed!!

Big Brother has become more manipulative and sadistic

people seem to 'enjoy' watching H/M be abusive to each other

Number 7 I thought that was hilarious when Preston started singing along and big brother ticked him off about it

I think from now on it will go down hill as well,

because for a start the next show contestants will know that Big Brother will show there little chats in diary room ect to rest house,

and that they play them all against one another afraid it will Never be any where as Good again.

Not me I prefer the nicer people, really dislike the nastiness

They no longer keep chickens. What happened to Marjorie?

As Big Brother has developed more of a personality, viewers seem to have become much more detached from the humanity of the contestants, and much more supportive of the producers/BB.

I don't think contestants are naive enough to think the producers are on their side anymore, but possibly they take comfort in the idea that the viewers might be, and once upon a time perhaps they were - these days, I'm not so sure.

I hope the next series is going to be the one where people in the house realise that they're in it together, with no one else, and rebel against the whole thing, the producers and the viewers. What happens after that will be very interesting.

I miss the chickens! Though I'm not sure how they would have coped in the last two BBs.

Also - the booing. It seems everyone gets booed now, for no reason whatsoever; whereas it was quite shocking when it first happened to Adele.

Marjorie died I think there was a hint in BB5 when there was something painted on a tray.

Yes, with brid flu about to kill us all let's put some chickens in the House.

Me too..I get bored with all the bitching and arguing

I've noticed that the HM's rarely all sit together chatting or playing games in the evening anymore..I quite miss that

Yup. I miss the innocent days of BB2, where most of them were likeable and made an effort to get on. For the last two years I've found it difficult to like anyone in there.

Are they no longer allowed to take books in? Or musical instruments?

I think the first two Big Brothers were genuine experiments, when the producers didn't really know where the programme was going or who their main audience was going to be.
The first really tabloid-friendly BB was BB3, and since then, both house atmosphere and housemate make-up has been very much tailored to appeal to tabloid culture.

The contestants have generally got less and less likeable. Compare the housemates of the first two series with those in BB6. There are a lot more 'wannabees' among the contestants now than there used to be. All to the detriment of the program.

I think you're right. It will lose a lot now that the diary room isn't automatically private. It was interesting seeing two different sides of the same person and they won't be so happy to do that now.

CBB reminded me of season 3 or 4 of BB. Ok they had fights but isn't that better than women with their tits out in the hot tub? I cant stand all that crap, its pure desperation and tacky.

During BB1 & BB2 when the house mates were put in a 'normal' house with very little manipulation, even though they might not have liked each other all the time, the one common enemy they had was Big Brother and this often banded them together.

Once BB3 started messing with both the house and manipulating the housemates (altering the eviction process, forcing a single person to choose who should be up for nomination, dividing the group, etc.), this changed. From then on the common enemy was each other. This has become worse and worse each year until you got the me, me, me shoutfest that was BB6.

Big Bro can change the rules whenever it pleases, so you can expect that things will be different again this year from last and the year before that. The HMs going in there and thinking they know how to manipulate the game to their advantage each year is part of what makes the show the constantly evolving, fascinating experiment it is.

Maybe the house could be designed so everything is in one room i.e. the beds down one end, the kitchen at the other with the dining table and sofa in the middle. This will force all HM's into the same space and stop the seperation we saw last year in BB6

Oh God! Here comes my lengthy diatribe...

The key thing that's changed is the production team's attitude towards Big Brother - how they select contestants, how they structure the main show, how they design the house, how they twist the rules, etc, etc.

The average Big Brother contestant now needs to fulfil one of several criteria:
a) They must have been surgically enhanced in some way. Ooh goody. Tabloid column inches ahoy!
b) They must look relatively attractive so that they can either appeal to the teenage girls (if they're male) or be the object of hatred and contention to the same demographic (if they're an attractive female).
c) They must promise in their audition tapes that they're "a b*tch," a "sl*t," they "don't hide the fact they've got a problem with anyone," they "don't take no sh*t," or it's their life ambition to appear in Heat magazine.
d) They must be sexually ambiguous or do something so intensely wacky or crazy that everyone must think they're mad.

In the past, you didn't get this. Or if you did, there was a nice mix of 2-4 mad housemates mixed with a larger grouping of relatively normal (but still interesting) people, who, yes, might live interesting lives, but who are so damn EASIER to associate with. In the last two BBs, we've not managed to get ANYONE like that. The house has been filled with 12 argumentative extroverts. This is all very well for one series, but its been allowed to continue and will probably damage the show in the long run.

Can you remember the excitement that used to be swilling around before eviction nights? In the first 3 BBs, eviction night was a really dramatic, suspenseful time, when the result never seemed certain and Davina seemed to give it her all. We got chats with the families and features on the nominees. This was a really good idea, as it presented a BALANCED view of the nominees and gave them equal airtime. Now we get a 30-minute eviction show taken up with 28-minute-long highlights. Why is this so damaging? Because it allows the producers to edit the previous show in such a way that they don't have to show the nominees in a balanced or equal light. In BBs 1-3, the previous day recap was narrated by Davina inside the studio and lasted on average around 10 minutes. That's all it should be on eviction night. And what's more, Davina didn't go outside to meet the crowd until AFTER the eviction announcement. Which meant no crowd boos/cheers to different names being read out. A much more superior and impartial way of operating.

And that brings me onto the bloody crowd. It used to be quite amusing when the chief enemies and nasty housemates used to get a bad reception in BBs early days, but now nearly all of them get booed. Look at BB6 - there were only a couple of evictions that raised cheers. A couple, out of 15! It's partly to do with a cheapening of BBs image, from an entertaining but experimental Reality TV show to a media driven, Jerry-Springer-a-like, car crash show, with lower production values, half hearted "Oh, we've done enough to get their money anyway" marketing and presentation, and less interesting and exciting housemates (they're either all dislikeable or all disturbed). Also, twists used to be few and far between, so that when one actually happened, it was a HUGE event. They happen every other day now and therefore take the edge off of what would have been incredible ideas should they have been used in moderation. But I watched the first 3 BBs, and I can't stop now. How I long for the BB2 days to return, though!

It's a minor point, but I'm pretty sure people made bread in BB6.

They certainly did, and often, in BB5.

Yes, I think that's right, and important.

The biggest change for me is evictions. Since BB3 the vast majority of housemates get BOO'd by the audience. I don't really understand this and it annoys me because it's got the point where BOO'ing is the norm and cheering is the exception, IMO it should be the other way round. If everyone is BOO'd it means much less when the really nasty housemates get a bad reception. This ''It's all panto'' thing is just stupid as well - it's getting out of order I wish it would stop but I don't see how it will.

There is less of a feel-good factor about the whole thing these days too. I remember BB1 as having some of the most genuinely funny moments because the interaction between housemates seemed more genuine somehow. I can only guess this is down to casting but it's probably hard to get that back because nobody is innocent going into the house as they were years ago. Her innocence is the reason I think Chantelle has done so well this year - I think the public crave for that naivity and innocence now.

The audience has changed as well as the programme, though. Simply sticking ten people in a house bristling with cameras and filming them 24/7 is not the radical concept it seemed to be 6 years ago. We've seen six series of BB, we know the 'language' of the imagery, and the days when watching Mel pluck her bikini line in the garden was enough are long gone. If we had a BB like the first series, this forum would be choc full of posts about how 'boring' it was.

We need to see drama, conflict, suspense, romance, and part of that has to arise from BB's manipulation of the contestants.

Personally, I enjoyed immensely the way the last two series messed about with the relationship between BB and the HMs - allowing Emma and Michelle to watch their HMs from a secret room; giving Saskia BB-like powers, secret missions, diary room revelations &c &c. However, perhaps now it too is becoming predictable and there needs to be another major rethink like the one that produced the (IMO) superlative BB5.