Reality TV markets may well be the new Klondike as many claim but while it is still an emerging sector, with not enough past form to go on, the only thing certain is uncertainty. Take a strong position on a contestant and find your feet swept from beneath you by the whim of a put-upon producer, a shock revelation or a random late-night argument. All this instability makes trading an attractive option for those with sharkish tendencies.
Anyone who's played these markets knows that there's typically somebody written-off at some stage who drifts like an ice-cap during global warming then comes in sharply after an often innocuous, seemingly insignificant event. These are the volatile stocks we want to be trading on.
If there's one defining theme in the betting on reality TV it's that the market consistently underestimates the potential for contestants to change. One ill-judged outburst from Joe Blow and it's ‘LAY OF THE CENTURY' and ‘Mug Joe Backers Sign In Here' all over the Betfair forum.
And sometimes it's true - somebody really does completely blow their chances with one act of stupidity. Critics of reality TV say that this is not real. It's actually hyperreal - a heightened state of reality where every reaction is magnified. Emotionally, the highs are higher and the lows are lower, and the market will reflect that. The goldfish bowl circumstances may be contrived but the emotions are not. Anyone who doubts this should witness Vanessa Feltz's public meltdown or a tearful Les Dennis as he wound down the days of his marriage, every inch the middle-aged cuckold to a beautiful young wife. You quickly realise that while this may be a game-show, this is no game.
The initial drift may take place for a number of reasons. The contestant may be loud, aggressive or annoying in the first week. After Jade Goodey exploded into public consciousness in the first week of Big Brother 3 it was a brave man who would lay her for eviction even at the attractive prices available. But Lynne "psycho-killer" Moncreiff turned on those Gary Gilmore eyes and was voted out by the housemates despite polling fewer public eviction votes than Jade.
Other drift causing behaviour:
- They scream "I HATE YOU ALL!" on the first night and run into the diary room in tears begging to leave.
- By not bothering to turn up, they fail a task that means the difference between Chinese takeaways and champagne every night and rice and peas once a fortnight.
- Using knicker elastic and belts they catapult the chickens into kamikaze flight missions into the girl's bedroom.
You get the picture.
But what about the times when people come back from the brink? We've seen it time and time again but few people seem to be able to predict it. There are certain factors, however, that you might want to look out for.
All the comeback kids have at least one redeeming feature - be it Nadia's vulnerability, Jon Tickle's quirkiness or Jade's naivety. If you can spot the one endearing quality behind someone's aggression and defensiveness then you're in a great position to capitalise when the public start coming around to seeing it.
Jon Tickle traded at over 400 in the first week of Big Brother 4 before plummeting down to single figures gathering a dedicated cult following, fan websites and all, along the way. People saw Tickle as a one-dimensional database klutz with no social skills but he steadily revealed himself to be a unique individual with a take on life so bizarre he began outshining the attention-seeking frauds who had stolen a march on him in the early days of the competition.
The key thing is that the contestant shows some kind of self-knowledge, self-deprecation or personal growth. We can forgive their foibles if they give us some insight into who they are, what they're about and where their behaviour comes from. Sounds twee? That's probably because you're not a Big Brother voter - those women whose hands we put ourselves and our finances into every summer.
Above all, Big Brother is a narrative and we like to see people go on a journey. Nadia coming to terms with her gender and her quest for acceptance is part of Big Brother folklore now but she spent long periods trading in the 30s and 40s. Cameron started out as an unfancied bible-thumping virgin, puffing out his cheeks at the ample female flesh on show. One trip to South Africa later and it was all fashionable haircuts, sexual swagger and a slightly worrying penchant for slapping Nush's backside. And the public loved it.
Contrast those contestants who gained redemption with another drifter, Big Brother 3's Tim Culley . Tim was not only pompous and deluded he was also self-pitying. "Big Brother" he sniffled through watery eyes "you are discriminating against people with deficiencies", ignoring the fact that if Big Brother discriminated against people with deficiencies we'd be watching an empty house every summer.
Subsequent appearances on BBLB showed mute incomprehension of his unpopularity, playing along with Dermot O'Leary's gags with ill-concealed annoyance. He was as clueless as when he first walked into the house. Your ability to distinguish between the Tims and the Tickles of this world will largely determine your success when speculating at the longer odds.
It's often a male without the requisite social savvy who drifts but when it's a woman the assumption is that her attractiveness is the problem. A question you must ask yourself of female contestants is: are they attractive in a threatening way? It's a truth many hold to be self-evident that any attractive woman is toast in reality TV and this is only half-true. There's a certain type of attractiveness which is quite acceptable. Nush's willowy beauty and Shell's natural sweetness combined with her acute fashion sense both passed under the female radar.
The type of woman who will get it in the neck is one who looks like she might steal your boyfriend. Vanessa's vampish looks combined with lurid tabloid tales of trysts with Premiership footballers instantly made her a target for the insecure twentysomething women demographic who are as judgmental and unforgiving of aberrant female sexuality as any misogynist male holding the remote control with his free hand.
Jade, for example, may have been many things but boyfriend stealer she was not. It's not that she wouldn't given the chance but her porcine mush and dangling belly made her an unattractive proposition for all but the most errant boyfriend. She was pitied rather than feared and once you got past the Foghorn Leghorn voice and hissy fits you were faced with a vulnerable, damaged individual who had showed a lot of character to get through her life more or less intact. And don't we just love a survivor? The producers and tabloid press were happy to push this angle, showing some remorse after their complicity in the early Evict The Pig campaigns.
Which leads us to the next crucial element: who are the producers going to want around? Emma was entertaining but was such a volatile character she risked taking the entire show off the air. Victor's aggression was more controlled, more strategically employed and the huge prices available on Victor outright in the immediate aftermath of Fight Night were terrific value for anyone sussed enough to recognise this. Victor was able to turn aggression on and off at will - a trait he exhibited right up until the wedding blow up with Shell.
Of all the mistakes to make, the devilishly Machiavellian Slickman violated the fantasy of a pretty blonde girl's wedding day. The female voter base were not in a forgiving mood and you could hear a muffled cry of despair from the production pod as their last remaining A-list entertainer finally hit the bricks to the usual chorus of pantomime boos. But he had been given a good run for his money and prime-time slots for his diary room monologues were largely to thank for that. Despite what you may read, the Big Brother production team know what they're doing.
The volatile stocks are not just what make the programme watchable they are what make the betting profitable. The next time you're watching the highlights show, tearing your hair out at Baz or Shaz and pressing their eviction number on speed dial, take time to study them and ponder whether or not they can turn the tables, switch the game and stage the type of comeback where Rafael Benitez himself would be, like, "dude...". Your bank balance will thank you for it.
James Donaghy
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