Channel 5 and Endemol will use Facebook for the next Big Brother season as its voting platform. Significantly, voters will have to use Facebook Credits to vote.
The broadcaster has developed a Facebook app that will run alongside the current series which it bought the rights to from Endemol earlier this year.
The app will allow viewers to vote for contestants using Facebook Credits through MIG’s mVoy Engage platform.
Votes can be cast in real time and the platform is also integrated into the Official Big Brother UK iPhone and Android apps.
Voting on shows like Big Brother is big business and the use of Facebook and its currency Facebook Credits is a significant development in broadcasting.
“This is a major development in the broadcast interactive space. It is widely acknowledged that viewers are moving to multi-channel experiences when watching traditional shows,” says Rob Weisz, commercial director, Mobile Interactive Group (MIG).

Big business
MIG led research suggests that social participation TV (like this app) will drive broadcast interactivity to generate $2.9bn globally by 2016.
MIG’s ‘Mobile, Facebook and Interactive TV’ white paper argues that ‘40% of mobile users are most likely to be multi-tasking using their phone while watching TV’ and that ‘Social participation TV (S P-TV) will drive interactive behaviour to generate $2.9bn globally by 2016’. The white paper can be accessed here.

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