December 10, 2005
The Nation (Nairobi)
When popular continental reality show Big Brother Africa ended amidst celebration for Zambian winner Cherise, fans across the continent were quick to ask, "what comes next?"
Now M-Net, the Pay TV Channel that broadcast Big Brother Africa has answered the question and is coming up with a reality TV drama, which promises excitement and entertainment.
Early this week, it announced a plan to screen a new version of Big Brother, this time filmed on location in Nigeria with a Nigerian cast and crew.
It is dubbed Big Brother Nigeria and the show is to be produced by a Nigerian production team and is scheduled to run for 91 days, starting in March next year.
Big Brother Nigeria will see 12 Nigerian contestants sharing one home while 68 microphones and 27 cameras capture their lives for a continental television audience. At the end of the competition, after multiple rounds of public voting and contestant elimination, one winner will walk away with a prize of $100, 000 (Sh7.3 million). Launched in 1999, the Big Brother phenomenon has stormed the world and by the end of 2005, exactly 100 Big Brother series would have been produced across the globe.
Dramatic and controversial in every edition that has been created, the Big Brother experience has redefined standards for media environments, with record highs in television, Internet and other media.
In the USA, 10.9 million viewers tuned in for the debut show of Big Brother 4; in Spain, 10.7 million viewers watched its finale and in Italy Season 4 (Grande Fratello 4) had a peak audience of over 11 million. In Germany Big Brother 4 launched to over three million viewers, in Australia it peaked at 3.1 million viewers and in the UK, Big Brother 6 launched with an audience of 7 million.
Big Brother websites are popular as well, as audiences looking for more information, go cyber-surfing. In the Bulgaria, the BB Bulgaria website averaged five million hits per day, in the Netherlands the website attracted 52 million page views, in Scandinavia the website boasted 9.5 million page impressions during the first week and in Hungary on-line fans helped the show to log one million page impressions in the first 11 hours after launch. In the UK, 200 million page impressions proved Big Brother 3's popularity.
Big Brother Africa was a phenomenon in its own right. The show drew 100,000 SMS messages in the first ten days after launch. It was screened in over 40 countries and enjoyed an estimated viewer-ship of over 20 million. Popular with audiences, the show's house mates were transformed into stars and in Uganda, over 30,000 people are reputed to have met Ugandan finalist Gaetano Kagwa on his return to the country.
But for all its record highs for voting, viewing and more, it is the contestants who truly make the Big Brother concept successful. Whether they are sharing their tears, tantrums or triumphs they captivate attention and provide some of television's most unforgettable viewing.
To date, Big Brother series has been produced in Africa, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Croatia, Czech, Denmark, Ecuador, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Mexico, Middle East, the Netherlands, Norway, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Now as Big Brother Nigeria launches on M-Net, DStv audiences in Africa should get prepared for more memorable moments from the latest version of the hit show.
In addition to being filmed in Nigeria with Nigerian contestants, Big Brother Nigeria will include 80 Nigerian crew. This massive production team will operate in association with 16 South African crew. The additional crew will share the experience they gained working on previous editions of Big Brother. Together the team will produce three shows every week for screening on M-Net.
