I would like to explore the Indian prime-time TV show, Big Boss. The show is modeled based on the more popular Western TV show, Big Brother and has been through 5 seasons till date.
Celebrities are put together in one big house and are forced to stay together and perform weekly tasks for a few months. One house member gets eliminated each week. The elimination criteria is supposedly based on viewers choice since the member with the least number of votes gets eliminated.
Having followed a few episodes of Season 3, 4 and 5, I was able to see that the votes of the audience in no way played a part in the elimination process. The celebrity who was loved most often got eliminated before those who were hated by the public. Partiality and influence of the celebrity were the two main contributing, visible factors. If this is the case, then why ask the public to vote in the first place?
Another underlying factor I noticed was that the house member who is the loudest and creates the maximum number of controversies seems to last the longest on the show while the more submissive ones get eliminated in the first few rounds. Even if the louder ones get eliminated mid-way, they are brought back in after a couple of episodes with the Big Boss panel claiming that it was the "viewers choice" to get them back on the show. So does it mean that peaceful entertainment fails to capture our attention while controversies and fights grabs our attention?
Celebrities are put together in one big house and are forced to stay together and perform weekly tasks for a few months. One house member gets eliminated each week. The elimination criteria is supposedly based on viewers choice since the member with the least number of votes gets eliminated.
Having followed a few episodes of Season 3, 4 and 5, I was able to see that the votes of the audience in no way played a part in the elimination process. The celebrity who was loved most often got eliminated before those who were hated by the public. Partiality and influence of the celebrity were the two main contributing, visible factors. If this is the case, then why ask the public to vote in the first place?
Another underlying factor I noticed was that the house member who is the loudest and creates the maximum number of controversies seems to last the longest on the show while the more submissive ones get eliminated in the first few rounds. Even if the louder ones get eliminated mid-way, they are brought back in after a couple of episodes with the Big Boss panel claiming that it was the "viewers choice" to get them back on the show. So does it mean that peaceful entertainment fails to capture our attention while controversies and fights grabs our attention?
You definitely have a worthwhile phenomenon. It will be a bit harder to find the proof to back up the evidence that you have, i.e. that the audience popularity does not seem to be the main factor keeping contestants in the show. However, I believe you could make a case for the other implied claim in your hypothesis, namely that this show is not about awarding popularity, based on general decent, principled behaviour. The show has other intentions?
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