Right after Big Brother’s 18th season finishes, CBS plans to do it all over again in the fall. Variety reports that the next season of Big Brother will be online only and air on CBS All Access, the company’s online streaming service.
All Access costs $5.99 per month and lets people watch archived and live episodes of CBS shows like CSI and probably CSI: Sheboygan and whatever else is on CBS other than reality TV shows. It is also where the current Big Brother live feeds are broadcast at a much better price than before CBS brought that in house.
This marks the first time Big Brother will air outside the regular summer schedule since season 9 when writers were striking. That show aired from February-April 2008 because a different set of writers script the actions of these casts.
Having an extra season of Big Brother online makes sense. It’s dirt cheap to produce, and the revenue from the online feeds by itself more than makes up for the cost. The people who are subscribing now just for that have an excuse to stick around at least for another few months. This and similar efforts to produce original programming might actually make it seem worth subscribing to people who otherwise consider paying for a single network’s shows to be a waste.
The show will return to CBS on TV next summer like it always has.