Out of Touch With Reality TV

It really must be Summer - Channel Five are busy inflicting another series of Big Brother on us.  The words 'horse', 'dead' and 'flogging' come to mind.  There was a reason that the series was dropped by Channel Four - its time had passed and nobody was interested any more, but Five just had to buy it and put out its own even lower rent version.  The fact that nobody watches it just doesn't seem to bother them.  They really don't appear to grasp that the whole reality TV thing has moved on completely.  Back in the day, winning Big Brother was a passport to semi-celebrity status.  Even the also-rans could land contracts to endorse products and secured interviews in the papers, on the radio and on TV.  But can anyone actually name the winner of the last series, or the one before that?  Moreover, actual celebrities wanted to be associated with it, presenting the spin off programmes, or even just being guests on them.  Back in the Channel Four days, it did Russell Brand's career a power of good, but now, I suspect, he wouldn't be seen dead anywhere near anything Big Brother-related.  So it is that we now have the Channel Five version of the show presented by utterly anonymous non-entities.  They can't even get Brian Dowling ( a previous Big Brother winner himself) to present it

Personally, I was never a fan of Big Brother in any of its incarnations. As far as I'm concerned, it constitutes a complete waste of air time.  The idea that it, in any way, constitutes 'reality' TV is utterly ludicrous - placing a bunch of fame-hungry idiots (who are completely unrepresentative of the general public) in a completely artificial situation doesn't reflect 'reality'.  But I suppose that it represents relatively cheap TV, (which is why, I assume, that Channel Five continue to flog it), and appeals to the general public's voyeuristic urges.  It's all rather like spying on your neighbours, (actually, simply drilling a hole in the adjoining wall, or hiding in their attic and drilling holes in it so as to secretly watch your neighbours would be both cheaper and more entertaining).  But the fact is that 'reality' TV has moved on and mutated into those bloody staged things like Made in Chelsea or 'talent' shows like Britain's Got Talent.  Although, even these are beginning to slip in the ratings.  Increasingly it is those even more voyeuristic shows where parents spy on their offspring when they holiday in Ibiza or even just drive a car, which seem to be the favoured format, along with 'fly on the wall' workplace 'documentaries'.  Personally, I find them all equally dull and creepy.  Nonetheless, Channel Five still refuses to let go of Big Brother.  They've even stopped numbering the series now, presumably conceding viewer fatigue has set in, giving it a sub-title instead.  So, 'enjoy' Big Brother: Pile of Steaming Shit, viewer, whoever you are.