Can you believe it? After all these years, the King of reality TV shows ‘Big Brother’ is finally coming to an end. With the last series, ‘Ultimate Big Brother’, now in full swing, we’ve decided to take a look back over the history of the show and the impact the end of series will have on world of reality television.

Brainchild of John De Mol, Big Brother premiered on Dutch Commercial Channel ‘Veronica’ on 16^th September 1999 and is now franchised in over 30 countries. The UK version was first broadcast on Channel Four and E4 in 2000, a moment that many of us devoted BB fans remember extremely well. How can we forget Nasty Nick and now daytime TV DIY expert and all round nice guy Craig Phillips.

The introduction of Big Brother saw the popularity of reality television escalate to a whole new level.  By the time the show had reached its third series in 2003, a whopping 9.4 million viewers tuned in to watch Kate Lawler win in the final, a show that still marks Channel Four’s highest ever daily rating.

One of the key reasons for this reality TV entertainment revolution was down to the rapid advance in technology. Through the use of multiple cameras, the internet and via mobile phones the public began to feel as though they could interact with programs like Big Brother on a more intimate level. This symbolised a drastic move away from the traditional theory that all audiences are passive and introduced a new and active style of television. All this considered we would be lying if we said that there weren’t a few of us in the Core office who haven’t ever picked up the phone to vote for our least favourite contestant to be booted out.

However, as the series has continued over the years, viewing ratings have gradually declined, with an average of just 2.5million people choosing to tune into Big Brother 11. So the question is – where did it all go wrong?  The show has regularly been criticised for its high use of editing, which has led many people to question how realistic ‘reality’ programming actually is. Ultimately, the producers have the power to create narratives, play up potentially dramatic situations and even manipulate audience perceptions of certain contestants.

It is often easy to forget that the underlying aim of programmes like Big Brother is to generate as much revenue as possible. Every time a member of the public votes for any of the Big Brother programmes either by telephone or text message, at least 50p is added on top of the standard network rate.  Therefore, the 8.6 million votes received in the last week of Big Brother 3 equated to a huge £4.3 million. This gives an indication of just how much power reality programmes can have over its audience and suggests that although we may like to see ourselves as an active audience, we are actually more passive and easily influenced than before.  As far as Big Brother is concerned, there are only so many spins offs, house surprises and wacky housemates they can introduce before people begin to get bored.

We’ve just about seen everything during the ten years of BB, from an international racism outcry to Sam Pepper’s pure comedy genius. The final show seems to have come full circle, with ‘real’ contestant  Josie Gibson winning the show this year – ironic really when you consider the circus the show became for fame hungry ‘wannabees’. It remains to be seen how she’ll cope among the gaggle of former housemates over the next fortnight.

Big Brother has provided us with countless hours of entertainment and although it may have run its course, it is without doubt that its legacy will live on. With news this week that Richard Desmond is in talks to take Big Brother to Channel 5 next year, we may not have seen the back of the BB house yet….

Let us know what you think about the end of BB as we know it.