Big Brother is
a reality television series broadcast on Channel 4, and S4C
in Wales, in which a number of contestants live in isolation
from the outside world in a custom built house trying to
avoid being evicted by the public with the aim of winning a
large cash prize at the end of the run. It is based on the
Big Brother series produced by Brighter Pictures, a part of
Endemol. 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.
Each week, the housemates individually go to the diary room
and nominate two other housemates for eviction. The two or
more housemates with the most nominations are then revealed
to the House and the public; and the public are invited to
vote for who they wish to be evicted by sending a premium
rate telephone call or text message. The housemate who
received the greatest percentage of the public vote is
evicted.
The House
For the first two series, the house was located in Bow,
London near to the Three Mills Studios which housed Davina's
interviews and the production crew. After planning
permission expired after two main series (and the first
Celebrity Big Brother), Newham Council ordered the complex
to be returned to a natural habitat. Subsequent series have
taken place at Elstree Studios, which offers more security
than the Bow site (which had a public footpath running
alongside the southern border). The actual house is in a
separate building, and Big Brothers Little Brother/Big
Mouth/Big Brain as well as the eviction interviews are all
filmed in the nearby George Lucas stage, where Star Wars was
once filmed. Even the Elstree site has problems, however: it
is close to a residential area, attracting complaints about
crowd noise on eviction nights. Permission has recently been
granted to extend the lease of the house for series 7 and 8
(2006 and 2007 respectively).
On 20 July 2006 it was reported in a The Sun that Big Brother producers had failed to extend the lease of the house past 2007, mainly due to the noise on eviction nights. According to various websites, it was reported that on the 3rd April 2007, Endemol reached an agreement on extending the house lease until spring 2008, and Elstree are reportedly happy with keeping Big Brother at Elstree. The new owners of the Elstree Studios, Pacifica Ventures, have stated they wish for the house to remain as part of the site.
Big Brother Rules
Big Brother Rules
Big Brother History
Source: Wikipedia
