Five 'talks to buy Big Brother stall'

Who's "previous business decisions" are you talking about? Dirty Desmond's or Five's?

You've hit the nail on the head there.

I'm pretty sure that's not true, and if it is then that's only because C4 paid one hell of a lot more than they used to last time they bought they secured a deal for it after ITV wanted to buy it.

As I posted on Media Guardian's comments last week, there's still plenty of money to be made in the format from live feed subscriptions, phone call revenues (C4 currently gives a share of this to charity) and those rubbish text-in games they sometimes show on the live feed. It would bring consistent ratings of over 1 million to C5 every night for three months in the summer; something they can barely achieve during the winter. They can heavily advertise their other programmes to this constant audience and hope for a domino effect. That audience has a decent share of the key demographic as well last time I checked. They'd also have hours and hours of coverage for their loss-making digital channels, tonnes of headlines for Desmond's rags and a website which would surely get more hits than Five's current site does so scope for more advertising revenue there. And of course you can't forget the amount of exposure C5 would get from the headlines if and when they buy it and when they show it.

This will all come at a huge discount to what C4 paid years ago, it's not like anyone else wants it (that we know of). The show would surely pay for itself in no time?

I'm fairly certain that C4 gave that as one of the reasons for not renewing after 2010, although I'm not inclined to go hunting for the specific article unless you really want some proof. It was discussed in many fora at the time.

Many broadcasters seemed to rush forward last year to dismiss rumours that they would take the programme. No doubt Endemol have lowered the price since to attract a bidder, but it's still an expensive production to make, regardless of how small you make the profit margin.

At some point it becomes unreasonable to spend £Ms on a programme if the potential return isn't worth the effort. It doesn't look good on the balance sheet of any company if they return a bad profit:investment ratio.

Looking less likely now.....

Big Brother talks stall between Channel 5 and Endemol UK

Channel 5 owner Richard Desmond thought to be looking at alternatives including new reality format from John De Mol

Discussions between Richard Desmond and Endemol UK over acquiring the rights to Big Brother are understood to have stalled, with the Channel 5 owner thought to be looking at alternatives including a new reality format from the hit show's co-creator John De Mol, MediaGuardian.co.uk can reveal.

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29-09-2010 @ 8:34

Thought they'd already "stalled"?

In any event, if Dirty Des won't pay for the longest established reality franchise on the plant, can we really hold out any hope at all of him spending the cash on programming he claimed he would?

Isn't it more likely that he'll spend less money and commission a new reality show - like "naked ladies do anything for money"?

I think we should be told.

The original Dutch run of The Golden Cage didn't do particularly well in terms of ratings, but sure managed to spark controversy with questions being asked in parliament and all sorts. Quite possibly exactly what Desmond and Five are hoping for?

But if nobody watches (which apparently nobody did as it was insufferably dull) then there is no money so whats the point?

The Big Brother era is over, and anyway, I remember reading only a few years ago the previous controller of C5 said they were going to move away from reality TV programming altogether.

It's a bit academic recalling the words of a previous controller now the channel's ownership has changed.

I meant they were hoping for controversy and media coverage. The low ratings: not so much, obviously.

Yep but surely the previous controller was trying to move the channel on.