It’s pretty much the only thing that’s getting us through what has to be the most depressing day of the year… Celebrity Big Brother is back tonight! We’ve already revealed some of the names strongly rumoured to be entering the house on tonight’s live show (Channel 4, 9pm) and now we can tell you a few more juicy hints about the series, straight from the horse’s mouth. “We're trying to make it a funny few weeks,” says Endemol big-shot Phil Edgar-Jones. “The task producers are asked to come up with daft silly things for celebrities to do. Whether or not they will always be funny we don't know. There might be romance, there might be conflict, there might be all the usual stuff we can't control. We have designed on paper some amusing tasks with some particularly funny costumes.” Funny costumes – yay! Channel 4 commissioning editor David Williams has also talked about the controversy over the decision to severely reduce the amount of live “red button” coverage. “We thought about this long and hard and we didn't have the live feed for Celebrity Hijack either,” he says. “In the summer we found – and it's been a trend over the last couple of series – that less people are watching the stream on red button, but more people are watching the clips on the website. The numbers didn't justify the live feed. There is still overnight coverage and the same sister shows, so I think in terms of Big Brother being in many places, we are doing that more than ever before.” Bearing all this in mind, how excited are you about the new series, on a scale of one to ten? We’re teetering around a nine…
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