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In 2000, when the reality TV show \u201cBig Brother\u201d premiered in Britain and the United States, both versions had the same format: A group of contestants were filmed around the clock doing menial tasks and making endless small talk, and were evicted via weekly audience votes until a winner took home a cash prize.<\/p>\n
After one season, CBS executives were disappointed by lackluster ratings<\/a>, and changed the U.S. show into more of a game of strategy, in which the contestants voted each other out. British viewers, though, loved the public popularity contest, and the producers kept it.<\/p>\n \u201cWe, as a nation, became so obsessed,\u201d the British show\u2019s host, Davina McCall, said in a recent interview. Channel 4, the TV network, also broadcast a 24-hour live feed so viewers could even watch contestants, known as housemates, while they slept. In 2002, 9 million people tuned in to the Season Three finale, half of all British viewers watching TV<\/a> in that time slot.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Early breakout \u201cBig Brother\u201d housemates became British celebrities, but over the years the show\u2019s popularity waned, switching broadcasters in 2011 and finally getting canceled in 2018. (In the United States, the 25th season<\/a> of \u201cBig Brother\u201d recently premiered, still on CBS.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Now, \u201cBig Brother\u201d is returning to British screens, in a revival premiering Sunday. Its producers hope to recapture the series\u2019 early popularity by once again offering viewers an unvarnished social experiment, bucking current trends in British television.<\/p>\n In recent years, \u201cLove Island<\/a>\u201d has replaced \u201cBig Brother\u201d at the top of the British reality TV tree. The dating show \u2014 which also has versions across Europe and in the United States \u2014 features toned, glamorous young people, who may have even met already. The rebooted \u201cBig Brother\u201d arrives as \u201cLove Island\u201d ratings are in decline, with less than half the number of viewers tuning in for this year\u2019s season premiere compared with four years ago<\/a>.<\/p>\n Paul Mortimer, who commissioned the \u201cBig Brother\u201d revival for ITV, said that when it came to casting housemates, \u201cwhat we absolutely are not looking for are a dozen social media influencers that are trying to win more followers.\u201d<\/p>\n Instead, Mortimer said, once contestants entered the new Big Brother house, he \u201cwanted them to encounter people that, by nature of where they live, by nature of their social class, by nature of their sexuality, by nature of their experience up to this point, they would never have met.\u201d Viewers will be introduced to the new housemates during the series premiere.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n AJ Odudu, one of the show\u2019s hosts, said that British people \u201care, certainly on television, yearning for real authenticity.\u201d<\/p>\n During the heyday of \u201cBig Brother,\u201d the show cast housemates from groups that were rarely depicted on British TV. Odudu said that by watching \u201cBig Brother\u201d while she was growing up in Blackburn, northern England, she encountered an openly gay person \u2014 Brian Dowling, who won Season Two \u2014 and an openly trans person \u2014 Nadia Almada, who won Season Five \u2014 for the first time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n When it comes to the British version of the reality show, \u201cthere is something socially cohesive about it,\u201d said Misha Kavka, a professor of media culture<\/a> at the University of Amsterdam. \u201cBig Brother\u201d can give viewers a \u201csense of who shares your social space, without literally having to engage with them,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n Unlike \u201cLove Island,\u201d or other reality competition shows such as \u201cThe Bachelor,\u201d in which conversations may be guided by an offscreen producer, the British \u201cBig Brother\u201d was also distinctive because of its unpredictability.<\/p>\n Will Best, Odudu\u2019s co-host, said \u201cWe don\u2019t know what is going to happen there. Nobody does.\u201d<\/p>\n In the past, this freedom also created problems for the show. \u201cSometimes, you can put people together and magic happens, and sometimes you can put people together and fire happens,\u201d McCall said. In 2004, the house was trashed during an explosive, drunken fight<\/a> that had to be broken up by security guards. The series \u2014 and the spinoff \u201cCelebrity Big Brother\u201d \u2014 also made headlines in Britain following accusations of racist<\/a> and bullying<\/a> behavior inside the house.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n