WHEN Big Brother first hit UK screens 24 years ago, one of the current contestants was a tender 11 years old.

He says he’s been itching to appear on it ever since. Another was just four when the first batch of housemates were quarantined amid huge media hoopla. Yet he says he’s always been a fan, with a childhood ambition to appear.

When some of the current crop insist they aren’t looking for fame, I believe them. A mere 825,000 people tuned in to watch this year’s launch night on Sunday, and the days of Big Brother “stars” becoming household names are far behind us.

The best-case scenario is the occasional friendly nod or selfie request from a stranger; the worst is having abhorrent old social media posts dredged up and being evicted in disgrace.

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The UK might not be producing new “reality stars” in the same volumes as it once did, but it’s still determinedly recycling the old ones. A roster of vaguely familiar faces are still dating, dumping, competing, presenting and even breeding for our entertainment. Add in a few professional entertainers who have fallen from grace (or at least out of favour) and the line-ups for I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here create themselves.

It’s all a bit depressing, but commercial broadcasters have bills to pay, so if the British public are clamouring to watch a controversy-dogged Strictly dancer and a former Tory MP fight over rice and beans, that’s what they will be served up. If they want to watch Philip Schofield grow a beard on a desert island and deliver a series of self-pitying and deluded rants, that’s also available.

But when it comes to the BBC, shouldn’t the aim be to rise above the grubby demands of the market economy and craft family entertainment shows with genuine artistic merit, featuring skilled and talented individuals and designed to move, wow and even inspire those watching?

The news that the broadcaster has commissioned a fly-on-the-wall reality series starring Stacey Solomon, her husband Joe Swash and their six resident children is perhaps unsurprising, but it’s still depressing. “Insiders” have suggested this will be an Essex answer to Keeping Up With The Kardashians – as if the world was crying out for such a thing.

(Image: PA)
I’ve written before about the joys of Sort Your Life Out, the BBC decluttering show hosted by Solomon in which families who have faced major setbacks including divorce, death and serious illness are helped to let go of possessions that are often quite literally getting on top of them, and rewarded with modest home makeovers.

Solomon is an engaging and empathetic presenter, and the show’s messages about consumerism and sustainability are in perfect harmony with the human-interest stories.

Over time a few more humans have appeared on the show. In painfully contrived scenes, Solomon (third-placed on X Factor 2009, Queen of the Jungle 2010) is seen calling up Swash (King of the Jungle 2008, Dancing on Ice champion 2020) to assist when time is short to complete a room renovation.

In the most recent series her eldest son popped up to awkwardly help her make a shelf out of a twig for a child’s bedroom. Broadcast time that could have been devoted to more interviews with the featured family, or more cleaning, tidying and DIY tips from the expert team, has been spent drip-feeding the notion that Solomon and her family are in fact the most interesting characters here.

A savvy agent has clearly guided these additions, with a view to catapulting the whole family to the next level of BBC stardom. A quick glance at Solomon’s Instagram account, which has a staggering six million followers, casts some doubt on her commitment to sustainable living given she hawks everything from homewares to fast fashion and costume jewellery, in between sharing a steady stream of content featuring her youngest children.

Commodification of the family itself is the ultimate achievement of a strategic influencer. Not just using the members to build a brand and sell products but making them (or at least their content) a product too. There are essentially no laws to prevent such content creation. But should any broadcaster – let alone the BBC – be doing it?

The tide has already begun to turn against influencers who show their children’s faces on social media, both because of potential safety risks and because a child by definition cannot consent to becoming a mini influencer and having some of their most private moments shared with the world, and available on the internet forever.

In some families the children themselves have essentially become the breadwinners, with the parents in the roles of manager, camera operator and editor.

This new show will, of course, reflect a carefully curated version of “reality”. Solomon’s brand strategy is relatable, not aspirational, despite her personal wealth. But most parents will not be able to relate to the decision to invite broadcast cameras into the family home, and many licence fee payers will surely question why they are having to pay for it.