Bigg Boss

Bigg Boss is a television reality show broadcast on Colors channel in India. It follows the Big Brother format, which was first developed by Endemol in the Netherlands. Within a span of 10 years of telecast, Bigg Boss has rolled out 9 Seasons and one spin-off version thus establishing itself as one of the most popular Reality TV Series in India.

Concept

Bigg Boss is a reality show based on the original Dutch Big Brother format developed by John de Mol. A number of contestants (known as "housemates") live in a purpose-built house and are isolated from the rest of the world. Each week, housemates nominate two of their peers for eviction, and the housemates who receives the most nominations would face a public vote. Of these, one would eventually leave, having been "evicted" from the House. However, there were exceptions to this process as dictated by Bigg Boss. In the final week, there were three housemates remaining, and the public voted for who they wanted to win. The housemates in the Indian version are primarily celebrities with the exception of one who is a non-celebrity selected via auditions. Housemates are overseen by a mysterious person known as 'Bigg Boss', whose only presence in the house is through his voice.^[1]

The house

A Bigg Boss House is built for every season. The house was earlier located in the tourist place of Lonavla, Pune district of Maharashtra, however the house for the fifth season was located ND Studios in Karjat.^[2][3] The house is well-furnished and decorated. It has all kinds of modern amenities, but just one or two bedrooms and four toilet bath rooms. There is a garden, pool, activity area and gym in the House. There is also a Confession Room, where the housemates may be called in by Bigg Boss for any kind of conversation, and for the nomination process.^[4]

The House has no TV connection, no telephones, no Internet connection, clocks, pen or paper.^[1]

Rules

While all the rules have never been told to the audience, the most prominent ones are clearly seen. The inmates are not permitted to talk in any other language than Hindi. They are not supposed to tamper with any of the electronic equipment or any other thing in the House. They cannot leave the House premises at any time except when permitted to. They cannot discuss the nomination process with anyone.^[5] They cannot sleep in day time.

Sometimes, the housemates may be nominated for other reasons, such as nomination by a person who has achieved special privileges (via tasks or other things), for breaking rules or something else. If something is very serious, a contestant may be evicted directly.^[6]

Airing

The main television coverage takes the form of a daily highlights programme and the weekly eviction show on Fridays that are aired on Colors TV, while the first season was aired on Sony TV.^[7] Everyday's episodes contain the main happenings of the previous day. Every Saturday episode mainly focuses on an interview of the evicted contestant by the host. The episode on Sunday, named differently across seasons, contains extra footage of the week, which was not included in any episode.

Series details

Season	Main host	Launch date	Finale date	Days	Housemates	TRP			Prize money	Winner
						Launch	Finale	Average
1	Arshad Warsi	3 November 2006	26 January 2007	86	15	2.36[8]	2.87	2.72	₹1 crore (US$150,000)	Rahul Roy
2	Shilpa Shetty	17 August 2008	22 November 2008	98		2.42[9]	3.02	2.89		Ashutosh Kaushik
3	Amitabh Bachchan	4 October 2009	26 December 2009	84		1.96[10]	3.06	2.83		Vindu Dara Singh
4	Salman Khan	3 October 2010	8 January 2011	96	16	3.60[8]	6.70[11]	5.15[12]		Shweta Tiwari
5	Sanjay Dutt^[1]	2 October 2011	7 January 2012	98	18	4.30[13]	3.97	4.19[14]		Juhi Parmar
6	Salman Khan	7 October 2012	12 January 2013	97	19	3.21[15]	4.40[16]	3.81[17]	₹50 lakh (US$74,000)	Urvashi Dholakia
7		15 September 2013	28 December 2013	105	20	3.85[18]	4.80[19]	4.32[20]		Gauahar Khan
8		21 September 2014	3 January 2015	105	19	3.80	3.74[21]	3.77[22]		N/A ^[2]
Halla Bol	Farah Khan	3 January 2015	31 January 2015	28	10	3.74[21]	2.82[23]	3.28[23]		Gautam Gulati
9	Salman Khan	11 October 2015	23 January 2016	105	20	To be announced				Prince Narula

     Highest viewing figures.      Lowest viewing figures.

1. ^ Although Sanjay Dutt was the main host of season 5, Salman Khan also hosted a few eviction episodes with him including the opening & finale episodes.
2. ^ Bigg Boss 8 was merged with its spin-off series Bigg Boss Halla Bol! and hence, there was no particular winner of this season. Although on the finale day, the five finalists were declared as "The Champions", who continued their journey as contestants in the spin-off series, against some ex-contestants from previous seasons.

Housemate pattern

Clique	Season 1	Season 2	Season 3	Season 4	Season 5	Season 6	Season 7	Season 8	Season 9
Politically acclaimed	None	Sanjay	None	Seema	None	Sampat	None
Reality show Alumni		Ashutosh		Sakshi P.	Siddharth	Mink	Ratan	Renee	Prince
					Pooja M.	Vishal		Dimpy
LGBT	Bobby	None	Rohit	Begum	Laxmi	Imam	Andy	Sushant	Kanwaljeet
							Viveik
Pageant winner	Aryan	Diana	Aditi	None	Shonali	None	Gauahar		Rochelle
					Vida
On the Wrong Side of the Law	None	Monica	None	Devender	None	Aseem	None		Aman
		Rahul M.		Abbas
Item girl	Rakhi S.	Sambhavna	Sherlyn	Veena	Mahek	Sana	Hazel	Natasa	Nora
							Gauahar
International star	None	Jade	Claudia	Veena	Sunny	None	Elli		Mandana
				Begum			Sofia
Seasoned model	Anupama	Zulfi	None	Aanchal	Shraddha	Niketan	Asif	Diandra
	Carol	Payal		Hrishant		Karishma K.		Nigaar
Soap actor	Amit	Ketaki	Bakhtiyaar	Shweta	Juhi	Aashka	Shilpa	Gautam	Digangana
									Ankit
						Sayantani	Kamya	Karishma T.	Roopal
	Roopali	Rakhi T.	Tanaaz	Sara	Amar	Urvashi	Kushal	Sukirti	Suyyash
									Vikas
						Rajev	Pratyusha	Praneet	Kishwar
Singer	Baba	Debojit	Ismail	Manoj	Raageshwari	None		Ali Quli	Arvind
Sportsperson	Salil	None	Vinod	Khali	Sonika	Sidhu	Sangram	None
Film star	Ravi	Payal	Shamita	Ashmit	Akashdeep	Dinesh	Tanishaa	Sonali	Aman
								Arya	Rimi
	Deepak T.	Raja	Poonam	Samir	Shakti	Delnaaz	Armaan	Upen	Yuvika
	Kashmira	Sambhavna	Vindu	Dolly	Pooja B.	Sayantani	Apurva	Minissha	Vikas
Ajaz							Puneet	Keith
Comedian	None	Ahsaan	Raju	Veena	None	Vrajesh	Rajat	Pritam	None
Non-celebrity	Ragini	Alina	Pravesh	None	Nihita	Kashif	Anita	None	Priya Malik

Controversies

Season 4

• During the fourth season, TV actress Sara Khan, openly objected to the Bigg Boss' behaviour towards fellow-housemate Dolly Bindra. Ever since Dolly Bindra re-entered the house, there had been quite a bit of a change in her stance and attitude towards the inmates of the house. Dolly became quite polite and got some benefits like she was made the queen immediately after she re-entered, thereby enabling her to get certain benefits that the others couldn't even dream of. Thus, with almost everyone quite flabbergasted, Sara protested against partiality towards Dolly. Sara kept on complaining that 'Bigg Boss' was not fair at which Samir Soni, who too, had re-entered agreed with what Sara had to say. Sara was later strictly warned by the Bigg Boss and host Salman Khan regarding these vague accusations.^[24]

Season 6

• Soon after the entry of Kashif Qureshi, a common man chosen via auditions held across India, as an inmate of the house the whole exercise of selecting an unknown person to be part of Bigg Boss seemed to have come into question and has been reportedly a planned one. After Kashif was selected from the three short-listed hopefuls to enter the house the media scrutinized every detail that linked to Kashif's background. Unexpectedly Qureshi was found to personally know Salman Khan since he was shooting Wanted.^[25]

Guests appearances

Celebrity guests to appear on the series include:

Inhabitant	Season	Days
Ali Merchant	4	11
Pamela Anderson	4	3
Swami Agnivesh	5	3
Andrew Symonds	5	7
Yamamotoyama	5	1
Jyoti Amge	6	3

References

1. "Bigg Boss". Endemol. Retrieved 20 December 2010.
2. "What the Bigg Boss house is going to be like this season". Rediff.com Movies. 30 September 2011. Retrieved 2014-09-03.
3. "Shweta gets b'day suprise [sic] on Bigg Boss". MiD DAY. 5 Oct 2010. Retrieved 2014-09-03.
4. Rajul Hegde (8 October 2009). "What really goes on in Bigg Boss house?". Rediff. Retrieved 20 December 2010.
5. Malvika Nanda (9 October 2010). "Lights or not, camera, action". Hindustan Times. Retrieved 20 December 2010.
6. "Bigg Boss casts out violent Khan". Daily News and Analysis. 22 October 2009. Retrieved 2 January 2011.
7. "Sony, Endemol lock horns over Big Boss". Business-Standard. Retrieved 20 December 2010.
8. Sharmistha Mukherjee (7 October 2010). "Bigg Boss 4: Salman Khan scores over Amitabh Bachchan". Retrieved 18 December 2015.
9. BS Reporter (18 September 2012). "Colors bets big on Bigg Boss". Retrieved 18 December 2015.
10. Ashish Sinha (6 October 2009). "Big B fails to boost Bigg Boss 3 inaugural ratings". Retrieved 18 December 2015.
11. "Indian Television Dot Com - Bigg Boss 4 ends on a high note with 6.7 TVR". Indian Television Dot Com. 12 January 2011. Retrieved 18 December 2015.
12. Swarup Chakraborty (13 October 2010). "KBC-4 opens far better than other reality shows". Retrieved 18 December 2015.
13. "KBC 5 dominates Bigg Boss 5 in TRP ratings". Retrieved 18 December 2015.
14. "Bigg Boss 5: Pooja Missra thrown out". The Times of India. Retrieved 18 December 2015.
15. Gaurav Laghate (17 October 2012). "Bigg Boss gets the biggest jolt as TAM defers ratings data". Retrieved 18 December 2015.
16. "Indian Television Dot Com - Bigg Boss 6 lifts Colors ahead of Star Plus". Indian Television Dot Com. 16 January 2013. Retrieved 18 December 2015.
17. BS Reporter (21 January 2013). "Bigg Boss' sixth season fares better than previous run". Retrieved 18 December 2015.
18. "GEC Watch: Mahabharat gets epic start; Bigg Boss pushes Colors up". Retrieved 18 December 2015.
19. "TRP Ratings from 8th December 2013 to 14th December 2013 (Week 50) - Telly TRP". Retrieved 18 December 2015.
20. "TRP Ratings from 24th December 2013 to 30th December 2013 (Week 52) - Telly TRP". Retrieved 18 December 2015.
21. "'Satyamev Jayate 3' has Better TRP Ratings than 'Bigg Boss 8': Aamir Khan Beats Salman". International Business Times, India Edition. 13 November 2014. Retrieved 18 December 2015.
22. "Is Bigg Boss 8 Boring? TRPs Suggest Nobodys Watching - NDTV Movies". NDTVMovies.com. Retrieved 18 December 2015.
23. "Bigg Boss 8: From ‘Halla Bol’ to surprise eviction, lame attempts by makers to gain TRPs". India TV News. Retrieved 18 December 2015.
24. "Big Boss 4 : Sara Khan accuses Big Boss of being partial to Dolly Bindra". Frontier India. 9 December 2010. Retrieved 13 January 2012.
25. "Bigg Boss 6: Common man Kashif Qureshi’s entry courtesy Salman Khan?". Zee News. Retrieved 18 December 2015.