Big Brother was the first series of Big Brother in the UK, a reality show shown on Channel 4 in which a number of contestants live in an isolated house trying to avoid being evicted by the public with the aim of winning a large cash prize at the end of the run.

The first series was an unexpected summer hit in 2000. The first series started on 14 July 2000, and ended on 15 September 2000. What many fans of the series say is the most memorable moment occurred when attempts to influence voting by Nick Bateman (whom the tabloids nicknamed Nasty Nick) were uncovered by other housemates, who confronted him in a house meeting. He denied the allegations until the evidence was presented to him — housemate names, secretly written on scraps of paper hidden in his suitcase. Nick was removed from the house later that day by the show's producers for rule-breaking. A tabloid newspaper attempted to inform the housemates that Nick had been cheating by flying a remote controlled model helicopter into the house garden but the housemates were ordered to stay indoors. Bateman had also told fellow housemates that his wife had died in a car crash despite the fact that he had never been married.

Melanie Hill was seen to cultivate relationships with two different contestants. Hill avoided nomination until week 8 when all the remaining contestants except Anna were put up for eviction and she was voted out by a large margin.

The first series was mainly viewed by the daily highlights programme. The only un-edited footage available was a largely inaccessible, poor quality (compared with later series) streaming internet video. As a consequence many of the contestants complained afterwards that the series producers had 'created' characters for them through editing that did not correspond with their true personalities.

The housemate who led the 'outing' of Nick, Craig Phillips, went on to win the £70,000 prize as last remaining housemate. He donated the money to Joanne Harris, a close personal friend who needed a heart and lung transplant, due to having Down's Syndrome. As the British medical system refuses to provide heart/lung transplants to people with this condition (despite the fact that heart disease is an inherent part of Down's Syndrome), the only way for her to get the operation done was to pay for it privately abroad, which had been a financial impossibility before Craig won the show.

Source: Wikipedia