Big Brother: Story, Cast and Series Facts

Story and premise

Big Brother Australia is based on the international Big Brother series produced by Endemol in the Netherlands which began in 1999. The show's name comes from George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), which revolves around a dystopia in which dictator Big Brother is the all-seeing leader.

The series generally constitutes 14 or more contestants who live in an isolated house for several months. Housemates are at all times under the control of Big Brother, a rule enforcing authority figure who monitors behaviour of the housemates, set tasks and punishments and provides the mechanism for contestants to make external requests.

Housemates must remain in the house at all times, and avoid being evicted by viewers of the show with the aim of winning a substantial cash prize at the end of the series. Alternatively, housemates can also be removed from the house if Big Brother feels this is necessary, and can voluntarily leave the show at any time.

Housemates are filmed 24 hours per day with edited highlights broadcast during prime time slots, and late night footage broadcast live. Live footage is also broadcast via the Internet using Internet streaming.

Series details

• Title: Big Brother
• Format: Reality
• Language: English
• Premiere date: 2001-04-23
• Final broadcast date listed: 2014-11-26
• Status in TVmaze: Ended
• Network listed by TVmaze: Nine Network
• Network country: Australia
• Typical episode runtime: 90 minutes
• TVMaze ID: 8471
• IMDb ID: tt0287196
• TVDB ID: 76237

Cast and credited roles

• Mike Goldman — Narrator
• Gretel Killeen — Host
• Sonia Kruger — Host
• Kyle Sandilands — Host
• Jackie O — Host

Seasons in the TVmaze catalogue

• Season 1: premiered 2001-04-23; final listed air date 2001-07-16; episode order: 92.
• Season 2: premiered 2002-04-08; final listed air date 2002-07-01; episode order: 94.
• Season 3: premiered 2003-04-27; final listed air date 2003-07-21; episode order: 123.
• Season 4: premiered 2004-05-02; final listed air date 2004-07-26; episode order: 112.
• Season 5: premiered 2004-05-10; final listed air date 2005-08-15; episode order: 140.
• Season 6: premiered 2006-04-23; final listed air date 2006-07-31; episode order: 138.
• Season 7: premiered 2007-04-22; final listed air date 2007-07-30; episode order: 129.
• Season 8: premiered 2008-04-28; final listed air date 2008-07-21; episode order: 112.
• Season 9: premiered 2012-08-13; final listed air date 2012-11-07; episode order: 89.
• Season 10: premiered 2013-07-29; final listed air date 2013-11-06; episode order: 81.
• Season 11: premiered 2014-09-08; final listed air date 2014-11-26; episode order: 56.

Source and licence

Adapted from Big Brother on TVmaze. The synopsis is reproduced as plain text; catalogue facts, cast and season records are selected and reformatted. This adapted text is available under CC BY-SA 4.0, following the TVmaze API licence. Network and web-channel credits identify the service listed in this source; they do not establish current streaming availability.