Big Brother, a Brief History

I know as I gear up for the new season of Big Brother on CBS here in the states, and as I watch tapes of the Big Brother house from the UK, I smile. There is something about this unscripted or partially-scripted show that appeals to me. It is the psychological aspect. Throw a group of people together in a house and put a camera on them to see what happens. It turns me into a couch potato, and I watch fascinated, unable to get off the futon or change the channel, even during commercial breaks.

Most of us have lived this experiment in one way or another. I am reminded of my college days when 17 freshman girls huddled together in the girls bathroom one night before school started, talking about our fears about college, boys, and of course, sex. It was a bit of soul searching, with a bond that we were all petrified that we, the best and the brightest of our high school, might fail at a big college, or get lost and go to the wrong building for a class. I can only imagine what it would have been like had a camera been on us at the time.

According to my research, the very first Big Brother house was in 1999. Endemol productions came up with the concept, which came from America in the form of the Biosphere 2 project. When they first pitched it they called it the “Golden Cage,” and it involved putting contestants in a luxurious mansion for a year. The only problem with this idea was – you guessed it – the cost would have been astronomical. Estimates placed this at over 15 million pounds, which is about 22 million dollars, and any way you look at it, that’s a lot of moolah. So it was scaled back, to more a manageable (not to mention cheaper) format.

The first house opened in Fall of 1999, in the Netherlands. It was a success. No one thought it would do as well as it did. Shows in different countries run from 60-some days to the 100 days used by the Dutch and the U.S. The Big Brother format has been shown in many countries, including Portugal, Switzerland, Sweden, Australia, South Africa, Germany, Denmark, Norway, and Poland.

The Netherlands, as I said, had the first house. The host, or presenter, was a woman named Veronica, who would do a daily update on the house, which would be shown as “breakthroughs” during regular commercial programming. Hence, you could be watching your favorite TV show, and they would interrupt it for a special announcement – Live from the Big Brother house! A clip would be shown of something that happened that day, and people got hooked. The prize money was 250,000 guilders (roughly 69 thousand pounds or around 90 thousand dollars). The biggest highlight of the very first Big Brother house was when two contestants, Bart Spring in’t Veld, the eventual winner, and Sabine Wendel, were caught by an infrared camera having sex in Veld’s bed. This series, according to the UK Guardian newspaper, drew an average of 27.5 audience share across 100 editions, with 53% of the total TV audience turning in for the finale. The accompanying website generated 52 million pageviews during the show’s run, again according to the Guardian.

The second series had to up the ante, so contestants had to work harder at their tasks. They had to bake their own bread and tend a garden, hence, be more self sufficient. I guess this is where the “Heaven and Hell” idea currently taking place in the UK house came from.

Another interesting house has been the German one because it almost never aired. Before it was due to go on the air, the show came under fire from various political and religious leaders, who claimed it would violate a clause in the German constitution that protects “human dignity.” The producers defused the protest by agreeing to turn the cameras off for an hour each day.

Big Brother has been a success in every country it has aired, some countries more than others. Even in America, where it never got the ratings like Survivor, they must be doing something right with the fans, because a third season will be starting in July on CBS.

So get out the soda, pass the salty snacks, and get ready to sit back and watch. Like potato chips, where you cannot stop eating once you’ve had one, Big Brother is addictive. Once you start watching you get hooked. It’s a mindless, guiltless summer pleasure. And isn’t that what summer is all about?

Susan can be reached at sschechter@earthlink.net.

Be sure to sign up for our e-mail update so you can stay informed about new articles on the site! And take a look at the rest of the site. You can find all of our BB3 articles at the Big Brother 3 Page and take a look at our sections on Mole 2 and The Reality TV Hall of Shame. You can even buy reality show stuff at our Reality TV Store!

For more news about reality TV, be sure to check out RealityTVFans.com and SirLinksALot!