MEDIA: Promotional activity has been low-key: the watching eye logo sliced in between ad breaks, a few trailers, the odd billboard. But make no mistake: from today, there will be no escaping Big Brother 3.
With 16 million votes cast, Big Brother 2 was Channel 4's highest rating show last year by a long way. Shortly after the announcement of a deal for three more years with producers Endemol, Mr Peter Grimsdale, head of cross platform at Channel 4, compared it to a major sporting event like Wimbledon - a regular fixture for years to come.
Whether viewers will be bored sick by the minutiae of a bunch of strangers' daily existence by BB6 in summer 2006 remains to be seen. No one would deny that the format can produce compulsive viewing, but it could ultimately be the technical advances that maintain the show's huge audiences.
The antics of each new group of housemates are exposed to the nation in an ever widening and more complex combination of ways. Last year, providing access across nine different platforms, Big Brother 2 achieved some impressive firsts: 5.6 million votes were cast via interactive TV - easily the biggest interactive application in the UK.
SMS text updates, logos and ringtones could be bought with a voucher in the shops and, with the previous year's capacity issues solved, the website got over 158 million page impressions, making it Europe's busiest.
This year, there is more - particularly in the mobile arena. People will be able to vote for evictions by text message. The voucher will be available again - mainly for pre-pay users. But now with SMS reverse-billing, fans can send an SMS short code, regardless of their mobile network, to receive text news updates whenever they want them.
Comments and suggestions can also be sent direct to the production team via text. The most interesting will be displayed on the text ticker running along the bottom of interactive TV screens.
For Endemol, the show's producers, and for broadcaster Channel 4, Big Brother has become the big annual opportunity to trial new technologies and applications and see how far they will go. Mr Chris Short, head of interactive media at Endemol UK, says the UK's interactive TV version is a trail blazer. Despite media reports of slow takeup, the UK has far more digital viewers than anywhere else.
This year's interactive offering adds greater sophistication, with the Sky Digital platform providing four different video views of the house.
"We are working out what platform does what best and allowing it to concentrate on just that aspect," says Mr Short. Live streaming on the website looked as though it would be huge, but it proved problematic, the quality achievable on a 56k modem was low. "Now with E4, people can watch broadcast quality live streaming on digital TV, leaving the web to do what it does far better than anything else - provide up-to-the minute news, interaction and a sense of community," he explains.
Simplifying each platform offering allows viewers to choose what they want, when they want it. In theory, this broader range of choices should help maintain interest levels.
"We're creating this virtuous circle that excites the interactive audience about what's going on in the house, drives them towards the TV programme, the TV will drive them to the internet, the internet to the other ways they can get information, and the other ways drive them back to the TV," says Mr Short.
Deepening viewer involvement and generating revenue is the goal. The website, with its round-the-clock team of 30, is not cheap to run, but it builds the Big Brother brand. The site drives the audience not just to watch the show, but to participate and pay - using the mobile services and voting by phone.
So although Big Brother housemates will come and go, the technology will continue to evolve. The first Big Brother to feature live streaming direct to mobile phones is already on air in Sweden and this should be available for Big Brother 4 next summer. Like it or loathe it, the show's influence is felt across the schedule - interactive elements on trial find their way into new concepts. Pop Idol and Eden are typical examples. "I'd say every significant format that we are developing now has more than one platform attached to it," says Endemol's Short.
New shows in the pipeline using Big Brother-tested interactive technology include the i-Chart, an interactive music chart show, and the Peoples' Club, where viewers will decide who plays for a real football league team.
