Big Brother Germany

Big Brother Germany is a reality show on RTL II (with a 24h live broadcast on German pay channel Premiere/Sky). It was the first adapted version based on the original Dutch Big Brother series by Endemol in 1999.

Big Brother Germany summary

A group of people (called the Housemates) live together in a house, where 24 hours a day their every word and every action is recorded by cameras and microphones in all the rooms in the House. Access to television, the Internet, print media, and time is prohibited. In addition, the housemates live in complete confinement; they have no access to the outside world. At least once a week, the housemates secretly nominate two housemate they wish to face a public vote to evict. The two or more housemates with the most votes face the public vote. The viewing public decides which of them gets evicted through text message votes or phone calls. The nominee with the most votes is evicted and leaves the house.

Should their stay inside the house become difficult for them to bear, a housemate is allowed to voluntary leave at anytime during the game. In the event of a withdrawal from the house, a replacement housemate usually enters in their place.

In the final week of each season, the viewers vote for which of the remaining people in the House should win the prize money and be crowned the winner of Big Brother.

Changes of the Concept

Since the start of its first season in February 2000, Big Brother Germany went through numerous changes in its concept. Here are some significant examples of the progress of modifying the rules of the original game:

• "10 housemates live together in one house.": increased in season 2 to 12 housemates, in season #5, #6 and #11 the number of housemates is 15.

• "One housemates leaves the house forever when he/she gets evicted.": changed in season 2 with letting the first evictee return to the show.

• "Only the housemates have to decide which of them gets nominated.": changed in season 2 with automatically putting all housemates up for eviction in the final week. Besides in season 7 the viewers could decide which of them gets nominated. (Only 1 time)

• "None of the housemates know each other before entering the house.": changed in season 3 with a love-couple entering the house.

• "The prize money is a certainty": changed in season 4 with letting the final four housemates doing challenges and giving them a quarter of the original prize money for every succeeded nathan challenge.

• "The complete household lives together in one group": changed in season 4 with dividing the house into two parts with a "rich" and a "poor" area and splitting the household into two competing teams (that was changed in season five to three different teams). Season 6 gets three different houses where the housemates have to live in.

• "All the housemates live together in one house": changed in season 6 with building a whole "Big Brother village" including five houses and a farm.

• "The show runs for three months": changed in season 5 with expanding the show to one year and in season 6 when the show was to run indefinitely (see below).

• "The show is supposed to run for a certain time": changed in season 6 with the announcement that the show would run as long as the ratings were acceptable (it actually lasted 363 days).

• "Only the winner receives prize money": changed in season 6 with the creation of three different areas for the housemates where they had work and earn money, which was given to them when they got evicted (housemates who left the house voluntary didn't receive any money).

• "The housemates get no information from outside": changed in season 5 where the housemates were allowed to watch the RTL2 News after winning a game and in order to learn about a terrorist attack.

• "The housemates don't get letters from their family and friends or meet them while inside the house.": changed in season 5 where some housemates got letters/visits from outside as rewards for winning games.

Series Details

Series	Theme	Kick-off	Finale	Days	The Winner	The Grand Prize
Big Brother Season 1	-	28 February 2000	9 June 2000	103	John Milz	DM250,000.- (nowadays €127,000.-)
Big Brother Season 2	Back to Basics	16 September 2000	30 December 2000	106	Alida Kurras
Big Brother Season 3	-	27 January 2001	12 May 2001	106	Karina Schreiber	DM300,000.- (nowadays €153,000.-)
Big Brother Season 4	The Battle	31 March 2003	7 July 2003	99	Jan Geilhufe	€90,000.-
Big Brother Season 5	365 Days - 1 Million Euro	2 March 2004	1 March 2005	365	Sascha Sirtl	€1,000,000.-
Big Brother Season 6	The Village	1 March 2005	26 February 2006	363	Michael Knopf	€250,000.-
Big Brother Season 7	Who are you really?	5 February 2007	7 July 2007	148	Michael Carstensen
Big Brother Season 8	Rich vs. Poor	7 January 2008	7 July 2008	183	Isabelle "Isi" Kaufmann
Big Brother Season 9	Heaven and Hell	8 December 2008	6 July 2009	211	Daniel Schöller
Big Brother Season 10	Everyone got a secret	11 January 2010	9 August 2010	211	Timo Grätsch
Big Brother Season 11	The Secret	2 May 2011	12 September 2011	135	Marco Sonnen "Rayo di Sole"	€125,000.- (increased from €100,000)
Big Brother Season 12		2012	2012

Intros

Series	Song (English translation)	Perfromer
Season 1 &Season 11	"Leb" (Live)	Die 3. Generation
Season 2	"Zeig mir dein Gesicht" (Show Me Your Face)	Berger
Season 3	"Nur die Wahrheit zählt" (The Truth is only One)	Ayman
Season 4	"Alles ändert sich" (Everything Changes)	Oli P. feat. Lukas
Season 5	"Alles was du willst" (Everything You Want)	Lex
Season 6	"Deine Welt" (Your World)	???
Season 7	"Ich seh was, was du nicht siehst" (I See Something You Do Not See)	Senta
Season 8	"Chose to Be Me"	Sunrise Avenue
Season 9	Everybody	Mousse T
	Tabloid Junkie	Michael Jackson
Season 10	"Schöne neue Welt" (Brave New World)	Chulcha Candela

External links

• Official homepage
• Second Official Website on the RTL 2 Website
• All profiles if the housemates season 1 to 4 (German)
• BBC News "German Big Brother to run and run"
• Guardian Unlimited "Big Brother builds 'Truman Show' village"
• BBC News "Big Brother to end early"