Author: Tim

We have a date!

Peter Wiltshire from Channel Nine revealed yesterday that Big Brother will premiere on Monday 13 August, the day after the Olympic closing ceremony is broadcast.

Wiltshire also revealed Big Brother will run for 12 weeks, which takes the show back to its early season length of approximately 86 days. The show length has been known to change mid-season, however.

Housemates will likely enter the house on the Saturday or Sunday night prior, if Nine go with the pre-recorded format favoured by Channel Ten in the later seasons of the show.

Nine is intending to hold on to the audience turned in for the Olympics by having no break between it’s wrap up and the BB launch.

The new ‘adult’ show was also confirmed by Wiltshire as containing content not suitable for the 7pm “family friendly” daily show.

Finalists for this year’s Big Brother are being asked to provide producers with full access to their Facebook profiles as part of the show selection process.

In an email sent to potential housemates last week, contestants were first told to lock down their profiles to private:

You will need to set your Facebook onto full PRIVATE (friends only). This is mandatory. If you are having trouble please email [email protected] or call 02 9202 8593.

However in a following paragraph the contestants are then told they must send a friend request to the ‘Little Sis’ Facebook account (a personal profile rather than a fan page). Little Sis was used during the housemate hunt tour to post bland ‘insider goss’, but soon became an obvious monitoring tool for the housemate selection panel. Since the housemate hunt the Little Sis profile has been locked down.

Once your profile is set on private your (sic) must request LITTLE SIS as a friend on Facebook. Please be careful of fake pages and only friend request the correct one. This is mandatory.

The Little Sis profile can be found here: http://www.facebook.com/LittleSisterAU

Once friended the show producers, through the Little Sis account, can then view all of the contestant’s private information and activity on Facebook.

It is also speculated the requirement of having a Facebook account to get to the final stages of the audition process means the production crew are sticking with the generic 18-25 age bracket seen in previous seasons.

The producers are also not shy about dictating their total authority over contestant applications:

Many people have already been disqualified for breaching their confidentiality agreement. We have no problem removing you from the shortlist if this happens. The Audition Release and Confidentiality Undertaking you signed on your Housemate Hunt Registration Form is still binding. This also covers ANY discussion of the Big Brother audition process on social media sites, forums, websites or any other outlet and/or person.

Did you get through to the final stages of the audition process? Lets us know what you experienced – we’ll keep you completely anonymous.

Peter Wiltshire from Channel Nine’s sales division revealed today that Big Brother will gain a new nightly ‘adults only’ show in the 2012 lineup. The announcement was made at a media buyers breakfast alongside news of Channel Nine’s programming plans for the rest of the year.

Accompanying the usual 7pm daily show which has been described as “family friendly”, the new adult show will be broadcast on multichannel GO! at 9pm weeknights.

At this stage we’re not sure if this is simply a return of Big Brother Up Late, or something a little more ‘saucy’. Big Brother Uncut (later retitled Adults Only) was pulled mid-2006 amid political pressure and Up Late has not been seen since 2007. Either way a 9pm timeslot allows for screening of MA15+ content.

Channel Nine have begun slipping short ‘reborn’ trailers for the upcoming Big Brother season into its programming. The trailers began late at night a week ago and have now made their way into primetime slots for A Current Affair and The Voice.

This is the closest glimpse we have to the 2012 opening titles so far. Interestingly Southern Star (the show production company) and Channel Nine seem to be going with the theme music used from the 2005-2007 seasons, which is arguably the most memorable version.

There’s no denying though that the trailer and new Big Brother eye are incredibly similar to the designs used for the latest seasons of Big Brother UK, which was also ‘reborn’ to a new channel in 2011. Here’s a comparison:

Oh dear… maybe Channel Nine doesn’t have the funds available for a ‘new’ logo.

It’s now a good guess to say the new Big Brother Australia house could very well be similar to the new UK house, which was revealed this week.

Over in England their new Big Brother house is very plush, almost looking like areas from a luxury hotel resort. Will we see the same here, or vast rooms with sparse IKEA furniture?… Channel Nine’s budget will decide!

Thanks to marquisite for eye comparison image.