Big Brother is a reality television series broadcast in the United Kingdom and Ireland on Channel 4 and E4. It is also broadcast on channel S4C in Wales.
The premise of the gameshow is for contestants to live in isolation from the outside world in a custom built house. The winner is the last contestant remaining in the house at the end of the series as housemates are evicted by a weekly public phone vote. The prize is a large sum of cash. The show's name comes from George Orwell's 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, a dystopia in which Big Brother is the all-seeing, omnipotent leader of Oceania.
The main shows are hosted by Davina McCall and narrated by Marcus Bentley. The show premiered on Channel 4 on 14 July 2000. It is produced by Brighter Pictures, a company of Endemol. Big Brother returns for a 9th series, during the summer of 2008.
