The Big Brother Canada Digitial Dailies have been one of the most controversial Big Brother decisions. They removed the live feeds for curated content. It doesn’t quite feel like Big Brother without Live Feeds. The Live Feeds are kind of the whole point. Twenty-four-hour access to the houseguests makes Big Brother not just a reality TV show but a social experiment. The Live Feeds are important. However, it’s clear that BBCAN has no plans to return to offering Live Feeds. Instead, the Digitial Dailies seem here to stay.
With every new concept, there are some growing pains. The show is working out problems to help create the best experience possible with this curated content. Unfortunately, I don’t think the Digitial Dailies will ever quite live up to the standards of Live Feeds. However, we can assess the year one to year two changes. We had a lot of issues with it in the first year, but did they improve from Big Brother Canada 11 to Big Brother Canada 12? Let’s discuss.
The Biggest Changes From BBCAN11 To BBCAN12
The biggest difference between the BBCAN11 Digitial Dailies and the BBCAN12 edition is the length. For Big Brother Canada 11, the Digitial Dailies were around the two-hour mark. That gave us a tiny portion of the game. Big Brother Canada 12’s Digitial Dailies averaged about three hours daily Monday through Friday. However, usually, Monday’s drops included multiple days of Digitial Dailies. After having a break from posting Digitial Dailies, there was one infamous day of about 12 hours of footage.
The Big Brother Canada 12 Digitial Dailies also focused a lot more on the game. The Big Brother Canada 11 ones mixed personal and game things. It had more of the houseguests interacting beyond just game conversations. They also had more of a strict schedule this season. It felt like last season they were still testing days and times. This one the days and times were pretty much set on the weekdays around 10:30 EST.
The Good
Theoretically, at least three hours of content five days a week should be enough to get a summary of the gameplay for that week. I also am glad that the show only uploaded Digitial Dailies Monday through Friday, because it freed the weekends for fans and websites like this one that cover the show.
There were a few days where Digitial Dailies were uploaded late. However, most days it had a consistent schedule. It’s nice to know exactly when to turn them on. The Digitial Dailies did try to stretch out certain important information, like who won HOH or POV, but I do appreciate that eventually we found out those things. It wasn’t completely hidden from us.
The decision to show immediate reactions after Veto Competitions, nominations, and POV ceremonies. It led to some great moments and raw emotions. In particular, Donna and Dinis‘s blindside POV ceremony nominations were so interesting to watch. The episodes didn’t show nearly enough of that intensity, betrayal, and emotions of them. Therefore, it made me wish that other Big Brother shows would return immediately following these important events. We’re missing out on these key moments.
The Bad
However, the decision to cut the Digitial Dailies to prevent spoiling the Movie Night Massacre was a bad decision, especially after it leaked. It further confirmed that the producers want to prioritize the episodes over the feeds. However, the two things don’t need to be in opposition. They can help each other.
This was a continuous theme of Big Brother Canada 12. They would hold on to information by waiting to show it as long as possible. This sometimes made days, such as Thursday Digitial Dailies, feel useless. They would focus on stuff that was basically irrelevant by the time we saw it and not give new information, such as who won that week’s Head of Household.
Three hours a day is manageable but still I preferred the shorter Digitial Dailies that we got in Big Brother Canada 11. The BBCAN12 Digitial Dailies took up so much time when some could have been edited to summarize a conversation. Additionally, Monday drops were dreadful. There was way too many hours to get through in a day, especially when we were limited from seeing them to not spoil a twist or eviction.
The Digitial Dailies often felt very repetitive after the episodes aired. We would see the same conversation on both. This almost made it feel unnecessary to watch the Digitial Dailies and the episodes since they highlighted the same things. The latter half of the season begins to show a little more than what was on the episode, but the majority still overlaps a lot.
Definitely need to show extended important conversations on the Digitial Dailies. However, there could be more variety of those conversations and stuff that would never air on the episodes. The Digitial Dailies also missed great opportunities. For example, I would have loved to see the full Anthony and Victoria fight on the Digitial Dailies. That would have been interesting to see in more detail, including the build-up, aftermath, and escalation. It could have even been a separate Digitial Daily just devoted to that moment.
Like with the show, the Digitial Dailies editors pick the show’s stars and mainly focus on them. Therefore, we miss so many interesting moments, and we never get to know some players. Hamsterwatch addressed this in an article, and I agree, it’s a shame how much we don’t get to see the houseguests’ multifaceted personalities because of the limits of the Digitial Dailies.
It ends up simplifying players. No one is all villain or all hero, but the Digitial Dailies and episodes don’t allow for that much nuance of personalities. One reason that many people love Live Feeds is that it helps show people as layered individuals. You only know them in this situation, so not their full selves, but you get a glimpse of them.
The Digitial Dailies strips away room for gray and takes away some of the fun of the houseguests. We don’t see any of those lighter, fun non-game moments, like house games, players falling in love, or building friendships. We just see them as gamers, not as people.
Verdict
Even a year later, the same problem remains. The Digitial Dailies are still just too limiting. And I don’t think the solution is just longer ones because they’re still curated content. We still only see a couple hours of a 24 hour/7 days a week, nearly 70-day competition. We’re not even getting a fraction of the story.
The Digitial Dailies are clearly here to stay. However, I am not sure if this decision will hurt or help the show in the long-run. Many may just adjust to this new reality, but a lot will also just take it off their spring TV schedule.
Let us know below: how you would rate the second year of Digitial Dailies. Did it improve?
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