Big Brother's BIG History

Big Brother is a reality television series broadcast in the United Kingdom and Ireland on Channel 4 and E4. It is also broadcast on channel S4C in Wales.
The premise of the gameshow is for contestants to live in isolation from the outside world in a custom built house. The winner is the last contestant remaining in the house at the end of the series as housemates are evicted by a weekly public phone vote. The prize is a large sum of cash.
The show's name comes from George Orwell's 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, a dystopia in which Big Brother is the all-seeing, omnipotent leader of Oceania. The main shows are hosted by Davina McCall and narrated by Marcus Bentley. The show premiered on Channel 4 on 14th July 2000. It is produced by Brighter Pictures, a company of Endemol.

Main series

Davina McCall is the host of the main show and the Live Eviction shows and Dermot O'Leary is the presenter of the companion show Big Brother's Little Brother, however, on 27 November 2007, he revealed that he will not return for the future Big brother series' but he will host Celebrity Hijack.

Although the ethicism of the show, and of some of its contestants, has sometimes been questioned, its continued popularity has ensured its survival. An eighth series launched on Wednesday May 30th 2007 It has also been confirmed a ninth, 10th and 11th series of Big Brother UK, which include the celebrity version, all its subsidiary shows and E4 streaming. However, it was announced on August 28th 2007 that Celebrity Big Brother 2008 removed from the usual Big Brother lineup. The ITV director of television, Simon Shaps, is believed to have talked to Endemol about the contract, it is understood the network did not make a formal offer for Big Brother.

Each daily show is repeated the following morning in Channel 4's breakfast schedule, and is censored to allow younger viewers to watch. The same show is repeated on E4 later in the afternoon. Live shows on Fridays are repeated on late Saturday mornings on Channel 4's teen strand T4 and repeated in the evenings on E4. In T4 and E4 repeats, any entrance or exit of a housemate are usually edited darker to lower the brightness of camera flashes, although this causes severe ghosting in the television picture. This is possibly to lower the risk of flashing cameras to sufferers of photosensitive epilepsy, even though Channel 4 does not broadcast with lower brightness (although continuity warnings are usually announced).

Logo

The iconic logo is in the shape of an eye. Since Big Brother 2, every UK series has featured a new ‘eye’ design designed by Daniel Eatock. The first series had a human eye as the logo (revealed, during her exit interview, to be that belonging to contestant Melanie Hill). The eye is chosen to signify the fact that Big Brother is ‘always watching’ and has become an iconic piece of art. Most series around the world have adopted the eye in their logo.

Auditions

Big Brother auditions are held around the UK and Republic of Ireland, and online via video. During the Big Brother 9 auditions, ex-housemates will be coming along to offer tips to the crowd.

Here's who will be at each location:

* Manchester, 24-25 November: Nikki Grahame
* Cardiff, 8-9 December: Glyn Wise
* Birmingham, 15-16 December: Ahmed Aghil
* Glasgow, 5-6 January: Anthony Hutton
* London, 19-20 January: Charley Uchea

Format

Each week, the housemates individually go to the Diary Room and nominate two fellow housemates for eviction. The two or more housemates with the most nominations are then revealed to the House, and the public are invited to vote for who they wish to evict by calling a housemates' premium rate telephone number. The housemate who receives the greatest percentage of the public vote is evicted. Until Series 8 viewers were able to vote by text messaging

Series 7 housemate Sezer Yurtseven holds the record for highest eviction percentage. Sezer was evicted in early June 2006 (week two) of Big Brother 7 with 91.6% of the vote, reportedly due to his televised antics. Initially ranked in May 2006 as the fourth most likely to win (behind Pete Bennett, Imogen Thomas and Richard Newman), the then 26-year-old stockbroker was the fifth to leave the house but only the second evicted. Model Lea Walker and waiter Richard Newman survived the vote.

The closest eviction vote so far was between Alison Hammond and Alex Sibley of Big Brother 3, who received 38.52% and 38.44% respectively, a difference of just 1,027 votes. This also happened with Series 8 housemates Kara-Louise Horne (30.8%) and Jonty Stern (30.7%).

Mark Owen won Celebrity Big Brother 2 with 77%, the highest winning percentage in Big Brother UK history across both the celebrity and regular series. Nadia Almada's 71% win in 2004 was the largest of the regular series.

House

For the first two series, the house was located in Bow, London near to the Three Mills Studios. After planning permission expired in 2002, Newham Council ordered the complex to be returned to a natural habitat. Subsequent series have taken place at Elstree Studios. For the 9th series of the show, it was originally thought that the house could be moving to a new location rumoured to be in Hammersmith; however it has recently been confirmed that the show will still be broadcast from Elstree Studios for at least a further two years.

The interior design of the house changes each year to suit the theme of the series. For example, the Big Brother 5 house was claustrophobic, with harsh colour schemes, while series 8 had an "Inside Out" theme. Exclusive pictures of the reportedly new Big Brother 9 house were published in heat magazine

Tasks

Housemates are regularly set tasks by Big Brother. These vary from a short job for one housemate (often conducted without the other housemates' knowledge) to tasks over several days involving the whole house. Shorter tasks are generally rewarded with "treats" such as cigarettes or alcohol. There is a main weekly task to determine whether the housemates receive a luxury shopping budget or basic rations only. Tasks often involve an element of performance, dressing up, or artistic endeavour. In more recent series, some tasks have also rewarded or punished housemates with regard to nominations.

Series 3 of Big Brother introduced the Saturday night "Big Brother: Live Task", which would determine on which side of the rich/poor divide individual housemates would live for the forthcoming week. The live tasks were continued throughout Big Brother 4, with winners treated to a hidden "reward room" for the evening. Live Saturday evening tasks were discontinued during Big Brother 5.

Aspect ratio

Series 1 to 6 of Big Brother (2000–2005), including the four corresponding series of Celebrity Big Brother, were some of the very few programmes on mainstream British terrestrial television that were broadcast in the old 4:3 aspect ratio as opposed to the more common 16:9 widescreen format. (Except the Big Brother Panto, which was in widescreen). The reason for this is unclear, but was believed to be because of the size of some of the cameras. However, from Big Brother 7 (2006) the aspect ratio has been switched in favour of the 16:9 format, with Big Brother, and all of its sister shows broadcasting in widescreen.

Live streaming

Channel 4 has made available live pictures and audio from the Big Brother house. However, a 15 minute delay is in place so that audio and/or pictures can be censored to comply with TV regulations.

The action from within the house is streamed live over the Internet for a one-off fee subscription that lasts until the end of a series, and for free to broadband customers of sponsors Virgin Media.

Since the second series, Channel 4's sister station E4 has also carried live pictures and audio from the Big Brother House. An interactive service available to digital viewers allows 24/7 access to the stream, even when E4 is carrying normal programming.

Theme tune

The theme tune was written and produced by Paul Oakenfold and Andy Gray. It was released as a single in September 2000 under the name "Element 4" and peaked at number four in the UK Singles Chart. It is also used for the Bulgarian series.

Sponsors

Series one and two were sponsored by BT, Series three, Celebrity Series two, and series four by O2. Series five, celebrity series three and series six by Talk Talk. Celebrity Series four, Series seven and Celebrity series five (until they withdrew because of alleged racism) were all sponsored by The Carphone Warehouse. Series eight was sponsored by Virgin Media.

Spin-off series

Celebrity Big Brother

Originally created as a one-off tie-in series by Channel 4 in association with the BBC's Comic Relief charity telethon, Celebrity Big Brother is now a full spin-off of Big Brother UK, shown on Channel 4, S4C, E4, E4+1 and Internet live streaming and downloading, backed up with email and sms text news reports to subscribers. The series features a number of celebrity contestants living in the Big Brother House, trying to avoid eviction by the public with the aim of winning a large cash prize to be donated to the winner's nominated charity at the end of the run. The show uses the same house and presenters as the non-celebrity version of the most recent series, but the time length is shorter than a normal Big Brother UK series. The celebrities are normally paid for their appearances, on the basis that they don't voluntarily leave.

The first Celebrity Big Brother was aired nightly on Channel 4 with the finale broadcast live on BBC One on Comic Relief night in 2001. Subsequent Celebrity Big Brothers have not involved the BBC or Comic Relief in any way, and the charities involved are given far less publicity than in the first series.

The series took a break for Teen Big Brother, which was shown in 2003 and given a revised repeat in 2004, between 2005 and 2007 it was a regular part of Channel 4's winter schedule.

On 17 January 2007, Celebrity Big Brother caused a record number of complaints to Ofcom, with more than 45,500 people contacting the regulator and 3,000 contacting Channel 4 over allegedly bullying and racist remarks against Indian actress Shilpa Shetty. It was reported on 18 January 2007 that Carphone Warehouse had temporarily withdrawn its estimated £3m sponsorship of Big Brother and Celebrity Big Brother, in the wake of the controversy. On the 8 March 2007, Carphone Warehouse permanently dropped its sponsorship of the show. Speaking in the Commons,the then Prime Minister Tony Blair said he had not seen the show but opposed "racism in all its forms".

Paris Hilton was rumoured to be interested in becoming a contestant in the 2008 series for a seven-figure sum.

However, on August 24th 2007, Channel 4 boss Julian Bellamy announced that Celebrity Big Brother would not return in 2008 and added that the show's future will be decided next year, saying "There's a general issue of supply and demand and it's getting harder to book celebrities." He added he would prefer to build up anticipation for Big Brother 9 which begins in May 2008.

Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack

Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack is a new series that will air on E4 in January 2008. It will be hosted by Dermot O'Leary, which was confirmed by Heatworld.com, which will be the last time he is involved with the Big Brother brand. It was announced by Channel 4 on October 8, 2007. The series will be a twist on the Celebrity Big Brother format. Instead of the celebrities playing the role of housemates, the celebrities will instead become Big Brother himself. The housemates of the show will be 18–21 year olds.

Teen Big Brother

Teen Big Brother was a special version of Big Brother, where eight 18 year olds lived in the Big Brother House for ten days. The series was aired in October 2003 on Channel 4 and E4.

Unlike all other Big Brother series, Teen Big Brother was pre-recorded and shown some months after the contestants had left the House. During the series' broadcast, it was involved in a scandal over two of the housemates having sexual intercourse on television.

Big Brother Panto
E4 and T4 broadcast the special Big Brother Panto' series, bringing together ten members of the various Big Brother series to perform a pantomime of Cinderella. It was aired from 20 December 2004 to 5 January 2005.