'BROTHER' CAN YOU SPARE SOME RATINGS?

Byline: Valerie Kuklenski Staff Writer

It's probably a good thing that the 10 residents of CBS's ``Big Brother'' house in Studio City aren't allowed to read newspapers, listen to radio or watch TV.

That way, they don't know how most people find them: Boring!

The voyeuristic series has been sinking like a rock in the TV ratings following its debut last week. With five episodes aired and 59 to go and a reported $20 million investment before the cameras even began to roll, it could be a long, uncomfortable summer for CBS.

CBS isn't panicking - yet. Executives say the audience drop was expected, mirroring the pattern in Europe where the series originated.

But outside observers say it indicates the series, about 10 strangers confined and spied on for 89 days, has not caught fire and probably won't.

And CBS is stuck broadcasting it for three months, like it or not.

Barbara Corday, a former TV executive and chairwoman of USC's Film and Television Production Department, said she agrees with an observation she read recently: ``Allen Funt did it better (on 'Candid Camera.')''

``There is a big difference, from a viewer's point of view, between watching people who don't know there's a camera on them and people who do know there's a camera on them. The true voyeur I don't think wants to watch someone who knows there's a camera on him.''

``Big Brother'' launched Wednesday with a one-hour special immediately following its tropical island-based hit, ``Survivor.'' It lost a chunk of that audience, but still delivered a 23 percent share of households watching television and big numbers in young adults favored by advertisers.

But critics and many viewers complained the first show was dull, with too much time devoted to profiling the inhabitants and hardly any time showing them in their new confines.

The slow start cost CBS viewers, with the audience down by halfThursday night and thinning out even more Friday and Saturday. Karen, the 43-year-old mother of four, has complained about her apparent soon- to-be-ex-husband and cried over missing her children, but few TV watchers seem to care.

Normally, a network would have the option of moving a failing show, putting it on hiatus or canceling it. But because ``Big Brother'' is an endurance contest with rules, it offers CBS little scheduling flexibility.

And then there's the investment.

With no high-priced stars or writers, ``Big Brother'' seems to be a cheap production (How much do those chickens laying eggs for the contestants cost?). But CBS reportedly plunked down $20 million for the rights to Endemol Entertainment's idea, a steep up-front expense for a network.

``Usually when you buy a series you're buying a pilot script,'' Corday said. ``If you hate it you're out in the thousands (of dollars), not in the millions.''

Chris Ender of CBS said the audience drop follows the precedents set in the Netherlands, where the concept launched last September, and ``Big Brother'' contests aired since then in Germany and Spain.

``It's actually following a similar pattern to what the show did in Europe. It still provided demographic gains in every time period it moved into (from last summer's reruns).

`` `Survivor' set the bar very high in terms of ratings expectations,'' Ender said Monday, noting that ``Survivor'' requires only a one-night-a- week commitment from viewers while ``Big Brother'' airs five times weekly.

After a weekend of steadily thinning audiences - even against reruns on other networks - the best hope probably lies in future conflicts, romances and the banishment process (yet to begin) that will lead to one $500,000 winner Sept. 30. Even so it seems unlikely CBS's ``Big Brother'' can regain enough steam to come close to the 53 percent to 59 percent shares enjoyed in Europe.

CBS executives would not reveal the projected ratings they guaranteed advertisers in light of the amazing success of peep-show ``Survivor.'' It is certain, however, that if ``Big Brother'' fails to live up to promises, the network will be handing out free spots to advertisers.

But it is the public that CBS is going to have to convince to care about the show.

``The characters are annoying and boring, not to mention the premise is so totally false and that's uninteresting,'' said Dorothy Swanson, president of the Fairfax, Va.-based group Viewers for Quality Television. She, however, admits to watching ``because when television gets this bad you just have to be there. It's like watching a train wreck.

``I just wish I could vote them all off the air at once,'' she added, referring to the gradual elimination process by which a winner will be chosen. ``It seems to me they're all auditioning for something.''