Big Brother (franchise)

Location of different versions of Big Brother

Big Brother is a popular reality television format, where, over 15 weeks or so, a number of contestants (typically 12) try to avoid periodic publicly-voted evictions from a communal house and hence win a cash prize. The show, a kind of 'real life soap', was invented by John de Mol of the Netherlands and developed by his production company, Endemol. It has been a prime-time hit in almost 70 different countries, earning Endemol large sums. The show's name comes from George Orwell's 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, a dystopia in which Big Brother is the all-seeing leader.

Format

Originally shown in the Netherlands in September 1999, and subsequently cloned across the world, the "housemates" are confined inside a specially designed house where every single point in the house is within view of a video camera, and not permitted any contact with the outside world (although some versions, like the ones from Philippines, Thailand, Mexico, Germany or Spain have introduced in some seasons precise changes, allowing the contact with the outside in certain situations): no TV, radio, telephone, Internet or other media are available to the housemates, not even writing materials. Private chats with a psychologist are a special exception. At weekly intervals, the public is invited to vote to evict one of the contestants. The last remaining is the winner.

Besides the same living together, which is the principal axis and major attraction of the contest, this one turns concerning 4 basic props: the stripped-bare back to basics environment in which they live, the evictions system, the weekly tasks set by Big Brother, and the "diary room", in which the housemates individually convey their thoughts, feelings, frustrations and their eviction nominees.

Initially, the hostel in which they had to reside for the duration of the competition was very basic. Although essential amenities such as running water, furniture and a limited ration of food were provided, luxury items were forbidden. This added an element of survival into the show, thus increasing the potential for tensions within the house. Now almost every country has a modern house for the contest, with jacuzzi, sauna, VIP suite, etc. in contraposition to other zones, or characteristics, of the house, more common, even precarious.

To fill in time, the residents have various chores to maintain the house, and are set apparently random tasks by the producers of the show, who communicate with the housemates through one (unseen) individual issuing commands, termed "Big Brother". The tasks are designed to test their team-working abilities and community spirit. The housemates have a weekly allowance with which they can buy food and other essentials. To obtain a greater allowance, they may gamble some of their initial amount on the success of the completion of tasks. Of course, their allowance is lessened if they fail to complete the weekly task.

Each week, the housemates each privately nominate a number of people who they wish to see removed from the house more than the other residents. The ones with the most nominations are then named on the television show, and viewers can vote for whom they want to be evicted.

After the votes are tallied, the "evictee" leaves the house and is interviewed on-camera by the host of the show, usually in front of a live studio audience. The last remaining housemate is declared the winner and receives a substantial sum in prize money, the amount of which has varied widely around the world.

The series is notable for involving the Internet. Although the main show, typically broadcast daily with a weekly roundup, is by necessity heavily edited, viewers can also watch a continuous, 24-hour feed from multiple cameras on the web. These websites were highly successful, even after some national series started charging for access to the video stream. In some countries, the Internet broadcasting was supplemented by updates via email, WAP and SMS. The house is even shown live on satellite television (with a 10-15 minute delay to permit muting of unacceptable content in the UK).

Despite derision from many intellectuals and other critics, the show has been a commercial success around the world. Criticisms typically are based on the ironic aspects of George Orwell's dystopic vision of Nineteen Eighty-Four being consciously aped by producers for public entertainment. More generally, the voyeuristic nature of the show, where contestants volunteer to surrender their privacy in return for minor celebrity status and a comparatively small cash prize, has attracted much scorn.

While any pretences to be a cultural experiment are dubious, reports of the different results of the show around the world have been mildly interesting from a pop-anthropology standpoint; i.e., in Spain, the competitors designed an agreement to achieve they all were nominated automatically and annul then their power of decision inside the process of elimination in the contest. This only happened once, as afterwards, Big Brother modified its rules to prohibit this type of agreement. On the other hand, other versions have involved plotting in the vein of the most cruel soap opera. Some versions have been filled with sex-crazed housemates, whereas others decided to base the conflict within their programs around difficult or romantic personalities, as in Brazil, Mexico, Thailand, Philippines or Spain. With the passing of time, it has been demonstrated that the most successful versions were the ones that emulated a soap opera, whereas the versions where the principal attraction was sex have been eliminated, as in Hungary or Poland. The amount of sex shown on the televised versions varies from country to country depending on censorship rules, with some countries editing out all sex and nudity, and others allowing the show to border on the pornographic.

One interesting development is that German scientists have discovered that former Big Brother contestants may be at risk from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, a condition sometimes suffered by those who leave the armed forces. Indeed, in the second Polish edition, one of the housemates was taken to a psychiatric hospital, and the winner of the first season in Portugal tried to kill himself several times.

Big Brother around the world

Region	Local Name	Channel	Official Website	Winners
Africa Template:Ref 1	Big Brother	M-Net	Website	Cherise Makubale (Zambia)
Albania	Big Brother	Top-Channel		Upcoming season
Argentina	Gran Hermano	Telefe	Website	Marcelo Corazza Roberto Parra Viviana Colmenero
Australia	Big Brother	Network Ten	Website	Ben Williams Peter Corbett Regina Bird Trevor Butler Greg Mathew Template:Ref 2 Current season
Belgium	Big Brother	Kanaal Twee	Website	Steven Spillebeen Ellen Dufour Kelly Vandevenne Kristof van Camp Current season
Brazil	Big Brother	Globo	Website	Kléber de Paula Rodrigo Leonel Fraga Dhomini Ferreira Cida da Silva Jean Wyllys Mara Viana Upcoming season
Bulgaria	Big Brother	NTV	Website	Zdravko Vasilev Miroslav Atanasov Upcoming season
CanadaTemplate:Ref 3	Loft Story	TQS	Website	Julie Lemay & Samuel Tissot Mathieu Baron & Stéphanie Bélanger
Colombia	Gran Hermano	Caracol TV	Website	Mónica Tejón
Croatia	Big Brother	RTL	Website	Saša Tkalčević Hamdija Seferović Upcoming season
Czech Republic	Big Brother Velký Bratr	TV NOVA	Website	David Šín
Denmark	Big Brother	TV Danmark	Website	Jill Liv Nielsen Carsten B. Berthelsen Johnni Madsen
Ecuador	Gran Hermano	Ecuavisa	Website	David Burbano
Finland	Big Brother	SubTV	Website	Perttu Sirviö Upcoming season
FranceTemplate:Ref 3	Loft Story	M6	Website	Christoph Mercy & Loanna Petrucciani Karina Delgado & Thomas Saillofest
GermanyTemplate:Ref 4	Big Brother	RTL II	Website	John Milz Alida Kurras Karina Schreiber Jan Geilhufe Sascha Sirtl Michael Knopf Upcoming season
Greece	Big Brother Big Mother	ANT1	Website	Giorgos Triantafyllidis Alexandros Moskhos Thodores Jspógloy Nikos Papadopoulos
Hungary	Big Brother Nagy Testvér	TV2	Website	Evi Párkányi Zsofi Horvath
India	Big Brother	SET		Upcoming season
Italy	Grande Fratello	Canale 5	Website	Cristina Plevani Flavio Montrucchio Floriana Secondi Serena Garitta Jonathan Kashanian Current season
Mexico	Big Brother	Televisa	Website	Rocío Cárdenas Silvia Irabien Evelyn Nieto
Middle East	Big Brother Al Raiss	MBC	Website	Discontinued Template:Ref 5
Netherlands	Big Brother	Veronica Talpa TV	Website	Bart Spring in 't Veld Bianca Hagenbeek Sandy Boots Jeanette Godefroy Joost Hoebink Upcoming season
Nigeria	Big Brother	M-Net	Website	Current season
Norway	Big Brother	TVN	Website	Lars Joakim Ringom Veronica Agnes Roso Eva Lill Baukhol
PacificTemplate:Ref 6	Gran Hermano	Telesistema RedTV ATV	Website	Juan Sebastián López (Ecuador)
Philippines	Big Brother	ABS-CBN	Website	Nene Tamayo Keanna Reeves Current season
Poland	Big Brother Wielki Brat	TVN	Website	Janusz Dzięcioł Marzena Wieczorek Piotr Borucki
Portugal	Big Brother	TVI	Website	Zé Maria Povinho Henrique Guimarăes Catarina Eufémia Nando Geraldes
Romania	Big Brother Fratele Cel Mare	PrimaTV	Website	Soso Joi Iustin Popovici
Russia	Bol'shoy Brat	TNT	Website	Anastasia Yagaylova Upcoming season
ScandinaviaTemplate:Ref 7	Big Brother	Kanal5 TVN	Website Website	Britt Goodwin (Norway) Current season
Serbia and Montenegro	Veliki Brat	B92	Website	Upcoming season
[[Slovakia] Some peculiarities In France and Canada, the format has been developed using couples. Twelve single people stay in the same house until only the winning couple are left. Big Brother USA currently uses a different set of rules from the other countries' versions of the show, as it has starting with its second season (the first season followed the traditional format) In the US version, viewers do not vote for eviction; all voting is done by houseguests. Also, the nominations are done by one houseguest, the HOH (Head of Household). The US version also introduced the Power of Veto, with a houseguest having power to save a housemate from the nominations. It's been adapted in Brazil and since then some countries modified their nominations rules. The third Dutch edition introduced the notion of "The Battle", in which the house is separated into a luxurious half and a poor half, with two teams of housemates constantly fighting for time in the luxurious half. Separated houses have also been used in Spain, Australia, Italy, Poland, Denmark, Slovakia, Greece, UK, Scandinavia, Sweden, Norway and Germany. Italy and Mexico added punishment zones to their houses. The fifth UK edition introduced the "Evil" touch, where the Big Brother voice became almost a villain. He was establishing punishments and was proposing hard tasks and secret tricks. This was also seen in Australia, Spain, Scandinavia, Bulgaria, Belgium and Mexico. The fifth German edition, running for a full year, separated the contestants into three teams (rich, regular, survivor) and equivalent living areas. The sixth version was running in a small artificial town denominated "Das Dorf". The fourth Greek season introduced a new element: the mother. In Big Mother nine houseguest take place in the game with their mothers, with whom they must coexist during the contest. The "mamas" would not be able to win the prize but they would stay with their children until their eviction. However, this proved to be a failure with the show's audience and the show switched back to the traditional "Big Brother" format in mid-season. There are four special panregional versions of Big Brother. All these follow the normal Big Brother rules with the exception that contestants come from different countries in the region where it airs: Africa: Angola, Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Middle East: United Arab Emirates, Arabia, Bahrein, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Syria, Somalia and Tunisia. Pacific: Chile, Ecuador and Peru. Scandinavia: Sweden and Norway. Also in different countries, there is a spin-off called Big Brother VIP (Mexico, Hungary, Argentina, Bulgaria -called VIP Brother-, Spain, Denmark and Portugal) / Celebrity Big Brother (UK, South Africa, Netherlands, Philippines, Belgium and Australia). Celebrity Big Brother does not attach the time length of the Big Brother VIP series (it only lasts a few days), which last even for months. In 2006 a new variant appeared in the Netherlands: Hotel Big Brother. Seven B-celebrity hoteliers and a Big Boss run a hotel, collecting money for charity without nominations, evictions or winner. Other special versions: Teen Big Brother (United Kingdom, Philippines). Teenage houseguests competing in a BB house for a few days. Big Brother, All Star (Belgium, planned version for the United States). Housemates from the different Big Brother seasons living together. Big Brother, Reality All Star (Denmark). Contestants from different reality shows living together at the BB house. Big Brother, Tilbake I Huset (Norway). Meaning Big Brother, Back In The House. The BB1 Norway housemates living together again. They also welcome 4 new housemates. Big Brother facts General Winners: 65 males and 43 females Country with most seasons: Spain, 7 finished seasons Country with most seasons in total: UK, 11 finished seasons (6 main, 4 Celebrity & 1 Teen) Country with most days with Big Brother on air: Germany, 1,142 days 1999 First Big Brother: Netherlands First contestant to be evicted: Martin Jonkman, BB1 Netherlands First contestant to voluntarily leave: Tara van den Bergh, BB1 Netherlands First replacement housemate: Mona Rooth-de Leeuw, BB1 Netherlands First Big Brother winner: Bart Spring in 't Veld, BB1 Netherlands 2000 First Big Brother in America: Big Brother USA Season with least contestants: 10, BB1 USA, BB1 Sweden and GF1 Italy First contestant to be expelled by Big Brother: Nicholas Bateman, BB1 UK First Big Brother 2: Netherlands First female winner: Daniela Kanton, BB1 Switzerland First bisexual winner: Bianca Hagenbeek, BB2 Netherlands First evicted housemate voted back into the house: Marion, BB2 Germany 2001 Most Big Brothers to start in a year: 21 First Big Brother 3: Germany First Big Brother in Oceania: BB1 Australia First replacement housemate to win Big Brother: Marcelo Corazza, GH1 Argentina First Loft Story season: LS1 France First Big Brother to have more than one winner: Christophe Mercy & Loana Petrucciani, LS1 France First gay winner: Brian Dowling, BB2 UK First incorrect eviction: Klaudiusz instead of Alicja, BB1 Poland Oldest Big Brother winner: Janusz Dzięcioł, 47, BB1 Poland First Big Brother with Head Of House: BB2 USA First Big Brother in Africa: BB1 South Africa Big Brother winner with the highest percentage: 90.03%, Ferdinand Rabie, BB1 South Africa First Big Brother 100 Days Later: Norway First Big Brother The Battle: Netherlands 2002 First housemates swap: GH3 Spain - BB1 Mexico First Big Brother to have BB nominating all housemates: BB2 Australia First Big Brother double eviction: Alex and Nathan, BB2 Australia First Big Brother with Power Of Veto: BB3 USA First pregnant housemate: Michelle, BB2 South Africa First Big Brother 4: Netherlands First Big Brother host to spend 24 hours in the house: Martijn Krabbé, BB4 Netherlands Least eviction difference: 0.08%, Alison 38.52% vs. Alex 38.44%, Alison evicted, BB3 UK 2003 First Big Brother with a couple competing: Pasquale and Victoria, GF3 Italy Oldest Big Brother housemate: Mihalis Apostolides, 63 years old, BB3 Greece First international version: Big Brother Africa First black winner: Cherise Makubale, BB1 Africa First Big Brother with ex-couple housemates: Alison & Justin, Amanda & Scott, David & Michelle, Erika & Robert, Jee & Jun, BB4 USA First winner of Asian descent: Jun Song, BB4 USA First Big Brother Teen: UK First Big Brother All Stars: Belgium First Big Brother 5: Spain First contestant to become pregnant in the house: Sissal, BB3 Denmark 2004 First blood related housemates: Domenico and Ilaria, father and daughter, GF4 Italy First Big Brother in Asia: Big Brother Arabia First Big Brother with a praying room: Big Brother Arabia First Big Brother suspended: Big Brother Arabia First Big Brother Reality All Stars: Denmark Only contestant to win 2 Big Brothers: Jill Liv Nielsen, BB1 & BB Reality All Stars Denmark First "Evil" Big Brother: BB5 UK First transsexual winner: Nadia Almada, BB5 UK First twins competing: Natalie and Adria, BB5 USA First Big Brother 6: Spain 2005 Longest Big Brother: 365 days, BB5 Germany Seasons with most contestants: 59, BB5 Germany & BB6 Germany Longest time in Big Brother house: Sascha Sirtl and Franziska Lewandrowski, 365 days, BB5 Germany Shortest gap between 2 Big Brother seasons: 0 minutes, BB5 > BB6 Germany Highest eviction percentage: 95%, Aline, BB5 Brazil First Big Brother village: BB6 Germany Shortest Big Brother: 60 days, BB3 Mexico Youngest Big Brother winner: Anastacia Yagalova, 19 years old, BB1 Russia First Big Brother with twins winning: Greg and David Matthews, BB5 Australia First Big Brother house to have an altar: BB1 Philippines First Big Brother ~ Big Mother season: BB4 Greece First Big Brother 7: Spain Longest gap between 2 Big Brother seasons: 966 days, BB4 > BB5 Netherlands Lowest eviction percentage with positive voting: 1.06%, Martin, BB6 Germany First Big Brother birth: Tanja Slangenberg gave birth to Joscelyn Savanna, BB5 Netherlands 2006 Most housemates left on the final: 6, BB6 Germany First HIV-infected contestant: Kenny van Quickelberghe, BB5 Belgium Near copies of Big Brother There are three specially important formats around the globe that attach to rules kind of similar with Big Brother: The Farm, created by the Swedish producer house Strix, creators of Survivor. It's the third biggest 'people-living-together' reality show on Earth, only defeated by Star Academy / Operación Triunfo (France/Spain, 2001, Endemol) broadcasted in 50 countries and Big Brother (Holland, 1999, Endemol) emitted or planned to be emitted in 68. Countries: Algeria, Bahrein, Belgium, Chile, Colombia, Comoros Islands, Denmark, Djibouti, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Kuwait, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Netherlands, Norway, Oman, Palestine, Portugal, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sudan, Sweden, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, UAE, UK, Yemen. The Bar, another format from Strix. Countries: Argentina, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland Protagonistas..., a format from the Spanish producer house GloboMedia, developed by its subsidiary in America, Promofilm. It's a mixture among Big Brother and Star Academy and has had a huge success in different latin countries, as Chile, Spain, Brazil (formerly known as Casa dos Artistas), Venezuela, Colombia or Mexico. It also had its own version in USA for the latin market airing in Telemundo. There are also some local formats that in one or other way are pretty similar with Endemol's Big Brother: Albania, Kafazi i Arte Albania, Syri Magjik Albania, To Sam Ja Austria, Taxi Orange Bolivia, Uno Busca Bosnia, 60 Sati Bosnia, To Sam Ja Chile, La Casa Croatia, To Sam Ja Czech Republic VyVolení France, Les Colocataires France, Nice People Germany, Der Container Exklusiv Hungary, Való Világ Indonesia, Penghuni Terakhir Ireland, Cabin Fever Israel, Project Y Israel, The Yacht Korea, Twenty Eyes Latvia, Fabrika Latvia, Barbarossa Netherlands, De Bus Netherlands, 7 Plagen Norway, Singel 24-7 Peru, La Casa De Gisela Peru, Gran Hermano De Chollywood Puerto Rico, 360 Estudio FYR Macedonia, Tom Sam Ja Russia, 12 Negrityat Russia, Dom Russia, Golod Russia, Za Steklom Serbia and Montenegro, To Sam Ja Slovakia VyVolení Slovenia, To Sam Ja Spain, El Bus Spain, Hotel Glam Spain, La Casa De Tu Vida Turkey, Biri Bizi Gözetliyor UK, Back To Reality USA, Unan1mous Ukraine, Dom