Big Brother Germany - Changes of The Concept

Changes of The Concept

Since the start of its first season in February 2000, Big Brother Germany went through numerous changes in its concept. Here are some significant examples of the progress of modifying the rules of the original game:

• "10 housemates live together in one house.": increased in season 2 to 12 housemates, in season #5, #6 and #11 the number of housemates is 15.

• "One housemates leaves the house forever when he/she gets evicted.": changed in season 2 with letting the first evictee return to the show.

• "Only the housemates have to decide which of them gets nominated.": changed in season 2 with automatically putting all housemates up for eviction in the final week. Besides in season 7 the viewers could decide which of them gets nominated. (Only 1 time)

• "None of the housemates know each other before entering the house.": changed in season 3 with a love-couple entering the house.

• "The prize money is a certainty": changed in season 4 with letting the final four housemates doing challenges and giving them a quarter of the original prize money for every succeeded nathan challenge.

• "The complete household lives together in one group": changed in season 4 with dividing the house into two parts with a "rich" and a "poor" area and splitting the household into two competing teams (that was changed in season five to three different teams). Season 6 gets three different houses where the housemates have to live in.

• "All the housemates live together in one house": changed in season 6 with building a whole "Big Brother village" including five houses and a farm.

• "The show runs for three months": changed in season 5 with expanding the show to one year and in season 6 when the show was to run indefinitely (see below).

• "The show is supposed to run for a certain time": changed in season 6 with the announcement that the show would run as long as the ratings were acceptable (it actually lasted 363 days).

• "Only the winner receives prize money": changed in season 6 with the creation of three different areas for the housemates where they had work and earn money, which was given to them when they got evicted (housemates who left the house voluntary didn't receive any money).

• "The housemates get no information from outside": changed in season 5 where the housemates were allowed to watch the RTL2 News after winning a game and in order to learn about a terrorist attack.

• "The housemates don't get letters from their family and friends or meet them while inside the house.": changed in season 5 where some housemates got letters/visits from outside as rewards for winning games.