Wednesday, July 07, 2004

Know your audience!

I caught a few minutes of this season's Big Brother before watching The Amazing Race last night. It's interesting to see how well the CBS executives know their audience. About a quarter of the Racers are middle-aged or up. Several of them are fairly overweight, and some are not what you would generally call attractive. On Big Brother, however, everyone is young and reasonably hot.

These are not unintentional decisions, I'm sure. People don't watch BB for the interesting conversations. (There aren't any. Lets just say that these people aren't chosen for their ability to talk.) They don't watch for the suspense. (There really isn't any, unless you count the fairly stupid and rather contrived contests for head of household and this week's food.) They don't watch for the exotic locales. (They're stuck in a house the size of my apartment, for crying out loud.)

No, people watch BB for T&A and P&D (pecs and dick). The producers ensure there's plenty of that by not air conditioning most of the house, plying them with lots of alcohol, and putting cameras in every inch of the house, including the shower. And with uncensored 24-7 feeds, it's basically CBS porn. In the interest of full disclosure, maybe I'm just bitter. I've always been unattractive, and now that I'm old and and fat, to boot, maybe it's just that I'm jealous of all these hotties people want to watch fuck.

Which brings me to the other reason people watch: to see who's gonna hook up. I think CBS made history last season by being the first major network to actually televise people having sex, although admittedly, it was only shown over the Internet feed.

The first big twist this season is that two of the contestants are half-brother and half-sister, and don't realize it. Fortunately, one of the two has figured it out, so we're spared the possibility of them hooking up. But that makes me wonder, what would happen if he had not figured it out, and they had hooked up? Would the camera crew stop them, and let the secret out? The cynic in me says no. After all, it would make *great* television.

1 comment:

David said...

Good god, man. If you're "old and fat," then being 10 years your senior what does that make me? Ancient and rotund? Get a sense of perspective. Or, better yet, get a mirror.

And as far as the bro-and-sis hooking up: Did you take a good look at those two? I don't think anyone will be hooking up with either of them. If everyone else was chosen for their buffness, then these two were only chosen for their built-in soap opera. One that, frankly, it seems cruel of CBS to exploit.