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Big Brother television program denies allegations of vote-rigging

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) - Big Brother is watching you, but who's watching Big Brother?

The Dutch creators of the popular television series strongly denied rigging the results of viewer votes on Wednesday, and said they sued a newspaper that claimed they did so. However, they conceded that they have no external oversight during the voting process.

The newspaper De Telegraaf published a front-page interview with a former contestant on Tuesday who claimed producers made it appear as if popular players might lose to spur viewers to vote for them and ensure they remained on the program.

The newspaper offered no evidence to substantiate the claim made by Gert-Jan de Boer, which appeared two days before the final episode airs Thursday.

But it cited the public notary that oversees the show's prize awards, who confirmed it does not check whether voting results are correctly reported during balloting.

A spokesman for the production company, Endemol, said that's because the results are compiled by a computer and presented directly to audiences as they are tallied.

"Why would we risk falsifying results? We rely on our credibility," Jeroen van Waardenberg said. "We use this format around the world and it works well."

Big Brother was created in the Netherlands in 1999 and then marketed in dozens of countries in various versions, helping to usher in the age of reality television.

It features a group of contestants confined in a house for 100 days under constant camera surveillance. Viewers vote them off the show one by one in what is essentially a popularity contest by calling or sending text messages.

The latest Dutch incarnation gained notoriety by featuring a cast member called Tanja, who was pregnant and eventually gave birth to a daughter on the show. The actual birth wasn't televised. She quit shortly afterward.

Van Waardenberg said Endemol was researching ways in which it could provide an external check "in order to prevent this kind of libel in the future."

Big Brother takes its name from the all-seeing authoritarian government described in George Orwell's novel 1984.

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expatia
21 December 2005

AMSTERDAM — Television production company Endemol is taking legal action following the publication of a newspaper article suggesting the voting in the Dutch series of its Big Brother reality show was rigged.

The claim was made by former Big Brother contestant Gert Jan de Boer, 37, just as the latest series was building up to the finale on Thursday.

He told newspaper 'De Telegraaf' he had documentation proving Endemol, and not the voting public, decided who stayed and who was evicted from the house. De Boer lived in the Big Brother house in 2001 before being evicted.

De Boer said popular housemates were deliberately placed lower in the rankings to

stimulate viewers to vote as many times as possible for their favourites. "That was pure viewer betrayal," he said.

Endemol denied the allegations and instituted legal proceedings against De Boer and the newspaper on Tuesday. The company said it wanted to demonstrate before Thursday's final that "Big Brother was run fairly, and the votes of the viewers alone decided the end result".

The court is being asked to compel De Boer to declare publicly his accusations are not true. Endemol wants 'De Telegraaf' to admit the story was under-researched and not based on reliable information.