The Big Brother series may be filling the coffers of Channel 4 but for businesses, both in Ireland and Britain, the effect has been quite different.
New data from British research company, Websense, shows that the costs to UK businesses of employees accessing the Big Brother website has been running at £1.4 million sterling (€2.28 million) a week or an average of around £300,000 a day.
No figures are available for Ireland, but with the series being equally popular here, businesses seem certain to be feeling similar effects.
Irish software integration company Entropy said that some Irish companies had been complaining of bandwidth problems.
When they were investigated, the problems were found to stem from the companies' own employees logging on to Big Brother and hogging the bandwidth.
Mr Conor Lavery, managing director of Entropy, said: "If this programme is an indicator of the television of the future, companies will have to consider carefully what employees can access in the office."
He said: "Companies do not have to take extreme measures; giving employees access during lunch time but limiting access during office hours seems reasonable."
Channel 4 is getting between 100,000 and 150,000 unique users every day on its dedicated website, with an average user session duration of 15 minutes.
Irish businesses could have to confront the phenomenon closer to home soon with the arrival of No54, a similar set-up here by student website, oxygen.ie.
No54 will involve four Irish students living in a flat for three months from September to December of this year.
With No54 though, there is no cash prize, there will be no evictions and no voting, and the contestants will be able to come and go as they like. The occupants will be on 24-hour webcam but not on television, and No54 will feature live bands, DJ sets and stand-up comedy.
Even without Big Brother, employees' minds have a tendency to wander in work. According to the Websense's latest figures, 70 per cent of all Internet porn traffic occurs during the 9 a.m.5 p.m. nine-to-five working day. In addition, 30 to 40 per cent of Internet surfing is not business-related, and more than 60 per cent of online purchases are made in work.
