New "Big Brother Social Insider" Offers Exclusive Peak Behind the Walls of "Big Brother"
"Big Brother: After Dark" Returns to SHOWTIME(R) and RealNetworks Continues to Provide Around-the-Clock Live Feeds
LOS ANGELES - BIG BROTHER, one of television's most socially engaged and interactive series, returns for its 14th season Thursday, July 12 (9:00 - 10:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network with a brand-new menu of interactive offerings to satisfy some of reality TV's biggest die-hard fans.
"BIG BROTHER has an insatiable fan base on-air, online and across social platforms," said Marc DeBevoise, Sr. Vice President and GM of Entertainment at CBS Interactive. "This season, we wanted to give BIG BROTHER fans a true second-screen social experience, offering even more ways for them to find and interact with not only each other, but the show and their favorite Houseguests."
This summer, BIG BROTHER fans will have an opportunity to interact with each other, and the show, with BIG BROTHER CONNECT located at http://connect.cbs.com/shows/big-brother. BIG BROTHER CONNECT will aggregate live social streams to drive conversations, feature hashtag-driven polls and will provide opportunities for fan tweets to appear during the Thursday night live shows.
In addition, fans will enjoy exclusive behind-the-scenes content through the eyes of the show's "Social Insider" by following the official BIG BROTHER Twitter account @CBSBigBrother (www.Twitter.com/CBSBigBrother). Tweets with the hashtag #bbinsider will take fans behind the walls of the BIG BROTHER house with first looks at challenges, production news and more.
In addition to these new elements, other BIG BROTHER online initiatives for 2012 include the following:
· Weekly LIVE Chat: This season, CBS.com will host fan-driven live chats every Friday with BIG BROTHER houseguests and series experts. Fans who would like to participate can submit questions on CBS.com.
· Flock to Unlock: Each week, fans can use the power of Twitter to access exclusive photos from inside the house taken by that week's Head of Household. Once enough fans tweet #BigBrotherHoH, the photos will be unlocked for everyone to see on CBS.com.
· BIG BROTHER Full Episodes and Video Clips: Full-length episodes, daily highlight clips and other content from BIG BROTHER will be available on CBS.com and across the vast CBS Audience Network, allowing a community of fans to watch the program online, incorporate clips into their blogs, wikis and widgets as well as interact and discuss BIG BROTHER on message boards. The CBS Audience Network consists of dozens of distribution partners including Microsoft, Yahoo, Comcast's XFINITY, TV.com, IMDB and TV Guide, as well as websites from CBS's owned television stations, 144 radio stations and more than 180 affiliated stations.
· BIG BROTHER on Twitter: In addition to @CBSBigBrother, fans can follow two other BIG BROTHER Twitter accounts to stay "in the know" with daily updates from inside the house. @BigBrotherScoop (www.Twitter.com/BigBrotherScoop) will provide exclusive production updates and @BigBrotherHoH (www.Twitter.com/BigBrotherHoH) will give that week's Head Of Household the opportunity to tweet daily messages directly to viewers and fans.
· RealNetworks Live Feeds: CBS and RealNetworks, Inc. join forces for the 12th straight season to provide exclusive All Access live streaming video from inside the BIG BROTHER house. The webcast coverage debuts immediately following the premiere on Thursday, July 12, and will be accessible through the official BIG BROTHER Web site at CBS.com and through Real's SuperPass subscription service at www.real.com/bigbrother. Subscribers to the All Access video stream can watch any one of four live camera feeds from inside the BIG BROTHER house or catch all of the action at once with the enhanced quad-cam view, which allows fans to see four different video feeds simultaneously. Subscribers will also have access to an exclusive subscribers-only webchat that allows fans from across the country to converse about what they see live on the feeds. Subscribers will have full access to the feed archives so they can go back and watch any moment they may have missed. The RealNetworks SuperPass subscribers will also be able to access the BIG BROTHER live feeds via their mobile phones and tablets. (As in past years, CBS may block or delay the webcast for a limited time and other events that transpire in the house to preserve the drama for BIG BROTHER television viewers.)
BIG BROTHER will once again be presented on multiple platforms and on multiple nights of the week on broadcast and premium cable television.
"BIG BROTHER" on THE CBS TELEVISION NETWORK:
· BIG BROTHER returns Thursday, July 12 (9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. Following the premiere, BIG BROTHER will be broadcast three nights weekly, beginning Sunday, July 15 (8:00-9:00 PM, ET/PT), Wednesday, July 16 (8:00-9:00 PM, ET/PT) and the LIVE eviction show hosted by Julie Chen, beginning Thursday, July 19 (9:00-10:00 PM, live ET/delayed PT).
"BIG BROTHER" on SHOWTIME(R):
· CBS and SHOWTIME(R) will partner again to present BIG BROTHER: AFTER DARK, a live look inside the Big Brother house during the late-night hours. BIG BROTHER: AFTER DARK will feature a feed from inside the BIG BROTHER house for three hours, seven nights a week (12:00-3:00 AM, live ET/delayed PT, Fridays - Wednesdays; 1:00 - 4:00 AM, live ET/delayed PT, Thursdays) on the multiplex channel SHOWTIME 2(TM), beginning Thursday, July 12.
Last summer, BIG BROTHER experienced significant growth across all platforms. Highlights include an on-air ratings increase of 11% in adults 18-49 on the CBS Television Network, a 9% increase in viewers of BIG BROTHER: AFTER DARK on SHOWTIME 2, a 22% increase in traffic to the BIG BROTHER website at CBS.com and a 10% increase in RealNetworks live feed subscribers. Additionally, last season BIG BROTHER grew its Facebook fan base by 101% and its Twitter followers by 2,750%.
