When Big Brother goes digital this fall with the first ever online-only version of Big Brother US (don’t worry, Big Brother 19 will be back on CBS TV in the summer of 2017) there are going to be a lot of great improvements that fans have long requested.
One of the major frustrations I hear from readers, and one we experience as well, is the downtime for Feeds when we have competitions or other events going on in the house. Since production is taking the time it needs to get all the footage for broadcast we’ve had things down for more than seven hours at a time. Well that won’t be happening in the Big Brother digital season this fall. With no regular episodes there will be nothing to protect for the next broadcast event. We’ll get to watch it all as it happens right there on our Big Brother Feeds!
As Big Brother’s fall season prepares to go exclusively online through CBS All Access we’ve been hearing a lot of very encouraging details from Heath Luman, Big Brother’s co-executive producer who is in charge of bringing all those weekly competitions to life. CBS just posted a really interesting read about Heath and one of his team’s latest comps, “Under The Weather.” Check that article out for more information on his role and how he supports the Big Brother team.
After the Black Box HoH comp was filmed behind the blacked out Live Feeds Heath took to Twitter to let fans know this wouldn’t be something we’d have to face in the online edition of Big Brother:
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Heath has been extremely open and available to Big Brother fans through Twitter, something he was doing earlier today when he was responding to fans and commented, “Well, good news is those games won’t have yard “transformations”, will be refreshing to focus more on game elements.”
I’m taking that to mean there will be less time spent on converting the backyard from the BB backyard we know to a space that feels like it could be somewhere far away. We’ve seen that with these massive competitions and huge backdrops that take over the space and hide its ordinary roots.
Heath again reiterated that instead of watching seemingly endless loops of Jeff Schroeder while production taped the Veto or HoH competitions when it came time for this new presentation of Big Brother we’d see all the comps happen live! “I can tell you digital is shaping up to be 100% live comps on feeds,” said Luman.
As for when the online season of Big Brother will begin? Good question. All we know so far is that it will start soon after Big Brother 18 ends and will last about ten weeks. I’m willing to guess they’ll want to be done by mid-December like regular shows are so to squeeze ten weeks in things would need to get started pretty soon after that September 21st finale for BB18!
If you’re dissatisfied that CBS is putting this online season of Big Brother behind a paywall then that’s something you’ll have to take up with them. We’re looking forward to the new season and will definitely be covering the whole thing here on the site. At $6/month it’s relatively inexpensive entertainment and is a great opportunity for fans who can make it work for them. If you can’t get the Feeds or afford them then you’ll always have our coverage here on the site and through our free Big Brother App.
Besides making all the competitions live and available to watch on the Live Feeds, what else would you want to change about the regular Big Brother seasons? What would lend itself to an online version that keeps the show rolling with less downtime than we’ve come to expect from the summer installments? Share your thoughts below. I’d be interested to hear your ideas.