Ten’s
Big Brother has had a rough year, in large part due to self-inflicted damage by the
Network as it sought to inject more “spice” into the program than in
previous years. The tasteless Uncut program at times
resembled a soft porn telecast: it was so grubby it
allowed hypocritical morals campaigners and politicians like Sydney’s Daily Telegraph to hop onto the censorship bandwagon.

It brought a rebuke from the Federal Communications Minister and a
monstering from the new Media Communications Authority which put Ten
management through the hoops – all a bit late given that the series is
over and Ten’s licence isn’t in danger. In the end BB‘s extra flesh was unnecessary and has obviously alienated some viewers. Why
else would there have been such a sharp drop in viewing numbers for last night’s final,
compared with last year?

Preliminary figures show that the final night of Big
Brother might have done the business for Ten last night
with 2.28 million watching the announcement of the winner, but compared with 2004,
audience numbers were down sharply. The 2004 winner was watched by a huge 2.863 million. That’s around
580,000 fewer viewers in 2005, or a drop of about 22% (The final
figures have yet to be confirmed. The 2.28 million figure was supplied
by Ten).