If the sky-high ratings, ground-breaking traffic, and a massive loyal consumer base are anything to go by, it certainly paid off.
Arguably one of the most successful arms of the media package was the Big Brother Web site. Not only did this offer programming information, live chat, information on the housemates and an online auction area, it also boasted an ambitious live streaming channel.
Southern Star Endemol (SSE), the developers of the program, and the site, are sitting pretty, confident in the belief that this success is only the beginning.
ZDNet Australia spoke with one of the people that made it all happen, Aaron Pedersen, general manager SSE's interactive division.
Q: How did the Big Brother Web site fit into the overall Big Brother media package? Was it to be a stand-alone Web site, or a supporting arm for the television program?
A: It was actually a combination of both, The site was designed to develop the online interactive experience...so someone could have just watched the television as well as the streaming on the Web, and had a full Big Brother experience. We wanted to make the experience richer, and more in-depth, across multiple mediums.
[The media package] provided us with an interlocking range of services and media experience around one concept of the format. The format is the very essence of Big Brother--that there are 12 people in a house, and you watch how this develops and have some control over the experience.
And the Web site definitely allowed a higher level of control. Have you thought any more about other kinds of technology that you would have liked to include in the package, and may include in future editions?
I think that events like this will improve even more by access to telephony, and also to iTV, or Pay TV.
I understand the UK are moving into the Pay TV arena for Big Brother 2. Is that something you had considered?
We definitely considered Pay TV, but focused more on the other 2 mediums. Pay TV is something that should be explored and that we may look at in the future. Basically, [the lack of Pay TV coverage] was due to development of technology ... we could only take on so much at one time.
Other television programs have used a Web site to develop traffic and viewer-loyalty, and not been very successful. What makes the Big Brother package different?
Initially [Big Brother Web site] stands out because of the live streaming. Because this was the first time in Australia that there was live streaming 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for 12 weeks. And this was hugely successful-there were more than 5000 simultaneous streams.
It is also the immediacy of the experience--at any time you can find out what's happening, and you feel like you have a direct window to the editorial lens.
When we started on this, we were trying to develop more and more ways to encourage audience to move between mediums to get different aspects of it. On the Saturday night show we would use vox pops to see what people thought of Christina and Peter, then we would encourage the viewers to the Web site to vote in an online poll, and then announce the results on TV.
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