I recently stumbled on the rather fascinating Channel 4 Programme, The Model Agency. Filmed in the offices of Premier Models, it lifts the lid on the world of the model agency: from money girls to show girls, from bookings to bitchiness, from catwalks to catalogues.

Whilst it has its own close-up taken, Premier Models has obviously taken the opportunity to extend its brand footprint. Launching a licensed beauty range is nothing new – but it’s not often that a B2B professional services brand (albeit in the glamorous world of fashion) makes the leap to the B2C spotlight.

What makes this a hit, not a miss, in the world of brand extension is the strong leveraging of Premier’s existing professional brand equity. Intimate knowledge of the effects of international travel and the stress of life on the catwalk, combined with Monu professional skincare, build a strong proposition for mere humans to aspire to! This is perfectly captured by the signature Model Kit – seven essentials in an airport-friendly pouch.

It will be interesting to see if Premier can stay the distance in the highly-competitive premium beauty category and build its B2C brand once the cameras have turned away…

So the Big Brother experiment is set to finally close. For years an institution – holding a mirror up to society and asking what we thought will air its final misdemeanors in 2010. Whilst it is impossible to argue that the programme was anything other than a resounding success for makers Endemol, viewing figures have been on the decline, dropping below 2 million on eviction nights for the first time in its UK history. So with the nation’s most notorious reality TV programme set to be pulled next year what (if anything) does this tell us about changes in viewing habits or media consumption?

I would argue probably very little.

For as long as I can remember the British media have loved to demonize imperfect reflections of their culture and in a fixation with Big Brother we were given a weekly opportunity to revel in exactly that. I would compare it to what will happen when our cricketers return from Australia next year after surrendering the Ashes. The recent fanfare will be quickly forgotten in a blitz of demonization and degradation. The ability to accentuate the negative in all around us is a favourite pastime of the British Media and I doubt that this will change with the passing of Big Brother. In fact, there have been recent suggestions that as viewing figures have trailed off so has press coverage in the Red-Tops. With a lack of media support, a tired format and the early adopters of the groundbreaking series moving on it’s no wonder BB has struggled.

Another reason put forward as partly accountable for the demise and of interest from a brand perspective is that the BB brand was casting a darker and darker shadow over Channel 4. Reportedly C4 felt that BB had become the equivalent of a rogue sub-brand whose worst features were polluting the vision, image and reputation of its master. This is an example of what we would call the ‘halo effect’ in reverse – rather than endorsing the quality of the Masterbrand of C4 the BB sub-brand was, through the associations with faux-celebrity and scandal, in fact doing the absolute opposite.

Watch this space for some Channel 4 post-Big Brother repositioning – although I’m not sure how they are going to pay for it because they are supposed to be skint.

As for the rest of us, I’m sure we have already found something else to watch.

Probably The Wire.