FREE TO AIR - Overdoing interactivity.

Just what won't people do to watch Big Brother? It's a question which for the last two years has been rhetorical. Maddeningly addictive, those with PCs or E4 in their offices have looked on in mesmerised disbelief as the daily nothingness swamped them.But this year the daily nothingness is different. It has nothing to do with the composition of the house and more to do with Sun Jihai and the nature of interactivity.Sun Jihai, as if you didn't know, is the preferred starting choice as China's right back in the World Cup - or is it left back? He personally has little to do with Big Brother mania but he does represent the counter-force for all-enveloping trivia. There are two living soaps on our screens and Sun Jihai's is more immediately engrossing than Sandy the Personal Shopper.And, in the year when BB has more stiff competition in the opening month than at any other time, it is fascinating to see how Channel 4 has structured its access to its most successful product.For starters, there is the 'alternate viewing' option on E4 interactive only. This raises an interesting point that there are effectively two E4s for the duration of the show - one showing the usual schedule, the other broadcasting live from the house via the interactive service.There is also the web access which for the first time is pay per view - a comment no doubt on the superior nature of video streaming. It makes me professionally glad though personally sorry that C4 is pioneering paid-for webcasting. I got as far as registering my credit card details before I had a moment of lucidity and stopped the #10-a-month madness before it went any further.The E4 Big Brother coverage is instructive of another trend. The 'more is less' fever seems to be sweeping the red-button community. I was rather disappointed that Sky News' interactive service - once an essay in uncluttered simplicity - has become almost unusably cluttered. For anyone with myopia or a small screen it is now unnavigable. The overall problem with 'more choice' is that it means the user is by necessity hampered from using the service as quickly as before.Likewise Big Brother interactive. While I have the utmost respect for its technology, the new green surround, the betting options and the 'edited highlights' rather than the four-hour/two-hour menu degrades the experience, as does watching the bloody thing through a tiny portal rather than full screen.When technology can deliver so much, it is tempting to use it to its full capacity. Yet this is often not what the audience requires. The commercial clutter around BB may be financially useful - but for how long? Encouraging people to watch on the web should be a way of boosting the main broadcast brand and thereby increasing the ratecard. The pay-per-view option and the more hoops we have to jump through on our screens, the more we may be tempted to pop off and find out if Slovenia is persisting with its barmy three-up-front formation.