How the real-time chaos and online fandom made Big Brother 2025 a breakout hit.

After a month on our screens, Big Brother Australia is officially done and dusted for 2025, with Coco Beeby winning the season. But although audiences are used to reality shows coming to an end, this time around, fans are feeling the gaping hole left by the programme’s end more than ever. Why, you ask? The 24-hour livestream.

When Big Brother was brought back by Channel 10, the network promised to return to the original format that Australia fell in love with during the early 2010s. That meant live nominations, live evictions and a livestream that followed the housemates every move, every second of the day. So, while the show was broadcast a whopping six nights a week, fans obsessed with the (often mundane) everyday reality of the Big Brother house.

Once the show kicked off, it wasn’t long until the livestream, which was streamed on both 10Play and TikTok, began to take over as the cultural focal point of the season. Instead of fans relying purely on the storyline created by the final episode edit, they could tune in at anytime to see what was happening and formulate their own opinion.

The accessibility created an unmatched level of intrigue and online conversation which took over not only the comment section on the livestream on TikTok, but exploded on Reddit, with the Big Brother Australia community on the site gaining more than 69,000 members during the show’s run.

According to the moderators of the subreddit — Jay, Ty and Taylah — it was the livestream that saw the show explode off the TV screen and into Aussie online culture.

“The return to the original format after 11 years allowed for viewers to be far more involved with the show, compared to the version aired on Channel 7 from 2020 to 2023,” Ty explained. And, he’s right.

For the first time in Big Brother history, it was up to the viewers to decide on the final housemate to enter the house would be, and at one point, livestream viewers were tasked with choosing who would be evicted during a surprise eviction.

For Jay, the access to the housemates made it feel like we were truly getting to know them — despite the occasional censoring by the big dogs at Channel 10. As a result, he admits that he spent “too many” hours plugged into the livestream.

“For exciting challenges such as BB Hotel, I think I got even less sleep than the staff did!” he shares.

“I was not alone either, we have community members watching the stream 24/7 from all over the world.”

While the livestream was a hit, it wasn’t without critique. According to Jay, there were moments where the livestream was cut or censored to preserve the storyline for the final cut of the episode.

“Thousands of people were tuned in at 1am to catch the snap eviction when Vinnie was evicted. There was a countdown on the TikTok stream and then production cut away seconds after waking the housemates up. There was outrage!” Jay explains.

“We then spent the next day highly censored to try to not reveal which housemate was missing, which was pointless as the reddit community had spotted Vinnie’s empty bed within minutes of the stream coming back on.”

Ultimately, despite some minor greivances, it was the livestream that helped massively to turn Big Brother‘s return to 10 into a huge success — and the data reflects that.

According to data supplied by 10, the finale episode on Monday night reached more than 1.1 million Aussie viewers which attracted a whopping 161 million total social media views across Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok (excluding the live TikTok channel). The impressive numbers saw this season of Big Brother become the network’s most successful reality show since 2023.

Not too shabby, hey?
What a season! (Image: 10)

What does this mean for other reality shows?

If there’s one thing we can learn from the success of 10’s Big Brother reboot and revival combo, it’s that audiences want to feel a part of something. Audiences are searching for community and involvement, and the livestream gave fans a way to not only connect on a deeper level with the housemates themselves, but others in the Big Brother fandom.

In 2025, fans aren’t looking for polished perfection, they’re looking for community. So, what can other networks do? Harness the terrifying, imperfect nature of live broadcasting and don’t be afraid to lean on the audience for input.

But hey, that’s just my two cents.