Date: 4th September 2000

Nudity Lifts Ratings For British Big Brother


While the American version of Big Brother, CBS's other reality series, has not come close to duplicating the success of Survivor, the British version continues to increase its ratings, largely because of more eccentric contestants and scenes featuring nudity, according to the London Sunday Times.

Exec producer Ruth Wrigley defended the nude scenes, telling the Sunday Times that viewers were getting bored watching "people in baggy T-shirts yawning in the garden." The newspaper also observed, "Thanks to Big Brother, Channel 4 is on course to register its best annual share of viewing since 1993."

Meanwhile today's (Monday) New York Times reported that on Wednesday night Paul Romer, a producer of the American Big Brother, plans to pay one of the six remaining contestants $10,000 to quit so that a 22-year-old alternate from Florida can be brought in to "introduce a new impulse."

The Times said that the producers had concluded that the remaining six contestants appear "to be doing everything possible to appear inoffensive." Romer indicated that the show will not take a cue from the British version. "Nudity is a bigger issue here," he said, adding that it "would be a bit of a problem on CBS."

Source: Studio Briefing