Big Brother’s revival is already proving popular with fans, with the season garnering over two million viewers when it premiered on ITV and ITV2 on October 8.
And if you’ve missed the series in the five years it’s been off the air, ITV is going all out to make sure you get your fix of roommate action, including reintroducing the live broadcast directly from the house between programmes.
You can watch that on ITVX until the wee hours of the morning, but if you’re staying up all night to keep track of the housemates’ every move, you may have noticed occasions when their talk is muffled, often to be replaced by bird noises.
We haven’t seen a lot of sparrows in Big Brother’s garden, so what’s up with all the bird noises? And why are some sections of the live broadcast music overdubbed?
This is what’s going on…
What are the bird noises on the Big Brother soundtrack?
There’s no great surprise here; the soundtrack is occasionally changed by bird noises to drown out anything stated by the housemates that cannot be broadcast on TV.
This might contain, for example, unsuitable language or material – which can include profanity but also sexual content, inappropriate talks (such as those involving risky conduct), and very offensive language or slurs.
There are also legal reasons why certain content cannot be aired; for example, a roommate may say something libellous against a person or corporation that cannot be broadcast.
Gonna hold off doing the UK live feed clips its 90% bird sounds at the moment lol
— 🔥 BigBrotherXtra 🔥 (@BigBrotherXtra) October 10, 2023
Similarly, any private conversation concerning family and friends might be considered a no-no and censored.
Narrator Marcus Bentley already addressed the shift, stating in 2022 that he couldn’t see the live broadcast returning due to the high cost of monitoring it.
‘I didn’t particularly enjoy it because anything that was important or controversial or whatever was always blocked out by bird noise anyway,’ he told Radio Times.
“But why it’s expensive is, you’ve got to have a lawyer and a producer watching it at all time. Somebody might suddenly start talking about their dad who’s got a gambling addiction?
‘And of course, that’s a personal thing. That would be very embarrassing for somebody. And so that’s the type of thing…there’s a million versions of that.
‘So you have to have these lawyers, and the lawyers are not cheap.’
Big Brother continues on ITV2 tonight at 9pm.
