Is Big Brother Canada 5 alienating fans (again) with live feed strategy?
Yesterday was one of the darkest days of the year in terms of Canadians getting a chance to watch the live feeds of the house. Ironically, they were on during much of the show airing on the East Coast, but they were also down for several extended periods of time, including last night when the houseguests got alcohol and a chance to relax and unwind … otherwise known as the time in which we most want to see live feeds.
Now, this is nothing new for Big Brother Canada viewers. The live feed for the show is not one that you’re paying for, and as a result of that, they have zero prerogative to give it to you all the time. They can save things for the air show as they see fit. This isn’t the first time that they’ve blocked a party from live feeders, and it probably won’t be the last. They’ve heard the complaints over the years, but they’ve decided that their own agenda matters more than what anyone online thinks.
Have they done some market research on this strategy? It’s hard to say, but to us, it makes more sense from a marketing standpoint to show some of the juicy stuff like parties and various tasks on feeds, since it affords you some opportunities to promote show edits. Let’s say, for example, someone gets a little boozy and gets into a shouting match on the feeds. Doesn’t that raise curiosity to see how the show presents it? If you don’t get to see the argument and it only pops up on the show, you’re losing perspective and authenticity. It only adds to the resentment that some may have over not getting all of the goods on the feeds when you easily could have. Also, unless someone knows the fight is coming, they may not have an incentive to watch.
It feels like Big Brother Canada is also trying to have their cake and eat it too when it comes to their presentation. They don’t give you unfiltered live feeds like we have in America — there’s a certain amount of protecting the houseguests that happens, which makes some sense but also strips the show of the organic social experience. If they aired daily, reasonably-unfiltered shows like Celebrity Big Brother in the UK, that would be less of an issue. However, they don’t have that. Instead, we have a heavily-edited show with excess product placement. We still don’t understand why they don’t shift to a paid live feed model, since we feel like many people in Canada and potentially the US, if they could work out a way to have it happen, would easily get them some of the money that they’d need to cancel out some product placement. Once again, though, maybe they’re privy to market research that we aren’t showing that they fund the show better doing things they way that they do.
The frustration here in the end is that Big Brother Canada is a superbly-cast version of the show, and one that does a wonderful job in terms of the house design and the competition. They have some great gameplay, and even though they often go overboard on the twists, we admire the effort to make the show its own thing. What bums us out is that Big Brother the premise should remain the star of the show. It’s the idea of seeing a real, accurate representation of who these people are around the clock and what they do — even if it ticks us off (looking at you, Big Brother OTT). Unfortunately, we get the sense time and time again that this is a show as much about image as authenticity, and that detracts from the experience as someone who craves watching the live feeds just as much, if not more, than the show itself.
Handy infographic – The folks over at Feeds Bot, who do an excellent job notifying you on Twitter when feeds are online, created yesterday (before some of the later outages) a chart showing the amount of actual active time a day you have live feeds. As you can see, there are some days where the feeds are off more than they are on and the houseguests are up and moving around. Pretty striking, no?
Do you think that the life feed strategy for Big Brother Canada is a problem, or are you just used to it at this point? Share in the comments!
Meanwhile, you can check out some further updates when it comes to Big Brother Canada the game this season over at the link here. (Photo: Global.)