Not everyone has the time or patience to stay glued to the TV screen watching a programme, particularly reality shows. Often times, the information that viewers get from their friends online serve as reviews of a TV show and the media choices they make are influenced by such secondhand information. It helps them stay even with the show, as well as deepen their understanding of its plots or events. In such instances, they listen to discussions about the last action of housemates or contestants, their attitude or strategy; how the latest incident(s) involving other housemates will determine their prospects on the show or affect their chances of winning, and how the show itself would pan out.
A study carried out by The Hollywood Reporter stated that over half of the people who were sampled said the social media determines the choices they made about entertainment. The report revealed that “of those who post about TV shows, 76 per cent do so live and 51 percent do so to feel connected to others who might also be watching.” It is not surprising, therefore, that show organizers encourage fans to take their dialogue to the second screen – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social media platforms in order to enhance and deepen the experience.
It is common knowledge today that reality TV show organizers use the social media to obtain viewer feedback, reactions and opinions, aimed at forging deeper audience engagement. Aware of the fact that the social media resonates with the youth and its potential to arrest their attention, the platform is the natural direction to look.
In corroborating this view, producer of The Voice (NBC), Nicolle Yaron, notes that “In this day and age, digital and social media for a successful television show can’t be an afterthought.”
There is no doubting the fact that these platforms, especially Twitter and Instagram, have earned the reputation of being the choice media because their fast-paced environment lends itself to the television. Twitter, for example, enables television producers and advertisers to get prompt feedback about their programming.
It is in the light of the above observations that one examines the role of the social media in the just-concluded Big Brother Naija (BBN) reality show.
BBN has come and gone but not without leaving memories and talking points that will surely linger. The show, which is a spinoff of the Big Brother Africa game show, was relaunched and renamed ‘Big Brother Naija.’ Its first edition, Big Brother Nigeria, was aired in 2006. Featuring 12 original contestants, otherwise known as ‘housemates,’ Big Brother Naija, which started shooting on January 22, 2017, came to a climax on April 9, 2017 after 78 days with Delta-born Efe Ejegba clinching the coveted prize of 25 million naira cash gift and a brand new Kia Sorento SUV car. Efe polled a massive 57.61 per cent of the total votes, distantly followed by Bisola’s 18.54 per cent, Tboss’ 16.60 per cent, Debie-Rise’s 8.78 per cent, and Marvis’ 1.47 per cent.
No doubt, a lot has changed between now and when the first edition of the show aired 11 years ago. That time interval has seen massive evolution in the mass media space with the emergence of various platforms and apps such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, Youtube, and Wechat, among others. For instance, while the BBN 2006 only made provision for viewers to vote via SMS, fans of the 2017 edition of the show, in addition to being able to vote via SMS, were availed of social media messaging app, Wechat, to vote for their favourite housemates and more importantly effectively used other social media platforms to enhance viewers’ participation and push conversations on the show.
In packaging the show, the BBN organizers have harnessed the power of social media to leverage audience interaction, thereby engaging the viewers and making them become a part of the event. The show generated so many internet trolls while it lasted and still continues to do so.
No sooner had the game show started than the media became abuzz with the news of the shooting of the game show in South Africa. This drew sharp reactions from some Nigerians who queried why a show about Nigeria should be shot in South Africa, especially considering the fact that the previous edition of the show was held in Nigeria. Of particular interest was the news that the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, had directed the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) to investigate and determine whether Multichoice, by shooting the show in South Africa, had breached the Nigerian broadcasting code in any way.
Google’s Communications and Public Affairs Manager, Anglophone West Africa, Taiwo Kola-Ogunlade, in a statement in Lagos, disclosed that in the show’s first week controversy over its shooting in South Africa topped Google trend stories.
The debate on the matter raged for several days before being eclipsed by more interesting developments in the show which grabbed viewers’ attention. Every day of the housemates’ stay in the house was simply sensational.
It is not surprising though that at the end of the game show, the host, Ebuka Obi-Uchendu, announced that it garnered over 420,000 Facebook fans, 320,000 followers on Instagram, and 160,000 followers on Twitter. Over 26 million votes were recorded for the finale alone, while 13 million votes were garnered in the penultimate week. These are further testimonies of the attention and buzz it generated in the social media.
Besides that, celebrity comments, opinions, banters and criticisms about the show; predictions on eviction, support for favourite housemates, as well as the entertainment created by the memes, mimicry, and jokes on the social media had a massive impact on viewership of the show and helped it to create an appeal to different audiences.
Fans favourite and winner of the show, Efe, also had a solidarity song composed for him by a certain Jude Nj and posted on Twitter. The title of the song, which was inspired by Efe’s now very famous tagline, is ‘Based on logistics.’
The social media continues to swell with conversations and memes on the show. Quite hilarious was a post in which a BBN fan mathematically worked out how long (3.36 hours) it would take TBoss to spend the N500,000 cash she won from Payporte after emerging as the housemate with the least time in all Payporte games. Just before the show’s finale, Tboss had, in a discussion with Efe, boasted of having male friends who owned private jets and how she would spend the sought-after N25m BBN prize money in just one week.
In addition, social media communities were built around virtually all housemates, especially as the show drew to an end. This helped to shore up support and votes for the housemates involved. At the live viewing centre in Lagos, where winner of the 2006 edition of the BBN show, Katung Aduwak, anchored the event, were significant numbers of fans and family members of the five finalists, who had followed them on the social media all through the show.
With the social media now technically the second screen through which the audience watch/follow their favourite shows on TV, it is expected that marketers will harness this to forge even closer engagement between their products and the audience in the foreseeable future.
Lawrence Amaku sent this piece from Lagos
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