Impact of Blogging on Pinoy Big Brother

Did ABS-CBN say that blogging did not help promote their Pinoy Big Brother show?

Retz is a blogger who blogged about Pinoy Big Brother. He became quite popular in the blogging community. Ian Del Carmen chose Retz (as a representative of the blogging community), and interviewed him.

That interview was removed and not shown in the Pinoy Big Brother Revealed show.

Naturally, a number of bloggers and fans of Retz are upset. News of Retz appearing on television swept through some portions of the Pinoy blogosphere. People got excited. And now this.

So, did blogging help or not help promote PBB?

1. If non-PBB viewers read the PBB blogs of Retz first and then watched PBB, then yes, blogging helped promote PBB. If people watched PBB episodes first, and then searched for PBB online and found Retz' blog, then...

2. Did people rush home to watch the show on TV? Or did they stay in their offices or internet cafes, or even go to sleep early thinking that they can get updates anyway from PBB blogs?

3. Did you get more excited about PBB via blogs you read? Or via people you spoke with?

We really can't tell for sure unless we see the stats. One thing's for sure, though. This has caused quite a stir in some parts of the Pinoy blogosphere (see Jobert's ...That's why I prefer GMA!)

Jobert writes: "I wonder if they ever issued an apology to Retzwerx. I mean, even after this, he still gives out updates on PBB. And guess who benefits from this."

To Jobert -- Both ABS-CBN (to a certain extent) and Retz benefits from this. Retz benefits more in terms of increased traffic to his blog. Imagine, all that "free" content (i.e., screencaptures, logos, photos of popular people like Sam Milby), plus search engine traffic and voila! More blog visitors plus the potential for advertising revenues for the blogs. That's why Retz will continue to blog about PBB in spite of what happened.

Pinoy Rickey writes ABS-CBN Scraps Pinoy Big Brother Blogger Segment: "For the entire PBB season that he blogged, Retz logged 100,000+ unique visitors, and when he broke the news that ABS-CBN scrapped his segment on Pinoy Big Brother Revealed, he immediately received 3000+ e-mails from his readers showing support. If that’s not influence, I don’t know what is."

To Rickey -- Your 800 to 1000 visitors a day is a significant number for a Philippine blog... if your readers take action as a result of the ideas you posted on your blog.

Jaypee writes in ABS-CBN belittles blogging?
"So that was the reason why they didn’t air that particular segment because they felt that this particular blog (Retzwerx) didn’t have much of an impact or effect on their show."

To Jaypee -- It's interesting that you have a question mark in your title. So far, all we have is Retz' statement regarding why his interview was not shown. That's just one side.

Will this con-blog-ration affect ABS-CBN and boost GMA-7's position?
No, it won't. The die-hard Pinoy Big Brother viewers couldn't care less about blogs. Still, it would be interesting to see how things turn out.

Stay tuned... ;-)

[ First posted on 12/19/2005 by Manuel Viloria ]