Bigg Boss

Bigg Boss is an Indian reality television game show franchise based on the Dutch reality show Big Brother. It is produced by Endemol Shine India through Viacom18 and Disney Star. Subsequently, the various versions of the show are made internationally available through OTT platforms Voot and Disney+ Hotstar.
Bigg Boss was originally started in Hindi language and has been extended into seven languages spoken in the Indian sub-continent, including Kannada, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi and Malayalam.

Overview

There have been seven versions of the show in different languages spoken in the Indian subcontinent. The first show of the franchise was Big Boss in Hindi which debuted in 2006 through Sony TV and from season two onwards it moved to and continues on Colors TV. In 2013, the franchise extended its presence in Kannada through Colors Kannada and Bengali through ETV Bangla, later rebranded into Colors Bangla. In 2017, it extend its presence in Tamil through Star Vijay and in Telugu through Star Maa. In 2018, it ventured into Marathi through Colors Marathi and in Malayalam through Asianet.
Though only celebrities were selected to be as housemates in the initial seasons, members of the general public have been chosen to be on the show in the latest seasons of Hindi, Kannada, Telugu, and Malayalam versions of the show.

Synopsis

Contestants called “housemates” live together in a specially constructed house that is isolated from the outside world. Housemates are voted out, usually on a weekly basis, until only one remains and wins the cash prize. During their stay in the house, contestants are continuously monitored by live television cameras as well as personal audio microphones.The program relies on techniques such as a scripted back-to-basic environment, evictions, weekly tasks, competitions set by Bigg Boss, and the “confession room” where housemates converse with Bigg Boss and nominate the housemates they wish to evict from the house. The housemates with the most nominations are then announced, and viewers are given the opportunity to vote via SMS or online through social media and smartphone applications for the nominee they wish to save from eviction. The last person standing is declared the winner.The contestants are required to indulge in housework and are assigned tasks by the omnipresent authority figure known to them a Bigg Boss . The tasks are designed to test teamwork abilities and community spirit of the housemates. The luxury budget is a weekly allowance to buy luxury food items other than the supplied essentials which depend on the outcome of assigned tasks.

History

Bigg Boss is a Hindi language adaptation of Big Brother created in the Netherlands by John de Mol Jr., largely based on the Celebrity Big Brother model owned by the Endemol Shine Group. The show was named Bigg Boss and a house was constructed for the show at Lonavla for seasons one to four and six to twelve, in Karjat for season five, and in Goregaon from season thirteen onwards. Bigg Boss debuted on television in 2006 through Sony TV with Arshad Warsi as the host. The show gained popularity after Shilpa Shetty emerged as the winner in Big Brother 5 and replaced Warsi as the host in the second season of Bigg Boss From the second season, the show’s broadcast moved to Viacom 18’s Colors TV. For the third season Amitabh Bachchan hosted the show respectively and Salman Khan continued as a host from the fourth season onwards, while Sanjay Dutt also hosted for the fifth season along with Salman Khan. Farah Khan hosted the spin-off season of the eighth season in absence of main host Salman Khan. The show’s acceptance and success among the Indian audience paved way for its expansion into other Indian languages After the sixth season wrapped in 2013, Kannada and Bengali adaptions were created by Endemol through ETV Network Sudeep hosted Kannada version Mithun Chakraborty and Jeet hosted Bengali version respectively. While the Kannada version continued with subsequent seasons annually, similar to Hindi, became an instant hit and the Bengali version completed only two seasons in six years and did not turn out to be as successful 2017, upon completion of ten seasons in Hindi, four seasons in Kannada and two seasons in Bengali, Endemol Shine India extended its presence in South India by creating Tamil and Telugu versions of the show with Star India. The Tamil version was hosted by Kamal Haasan While the Telugu version started with Jr NTR as a host, later for second season Nani replaced the host and from third season onwards Nagarjuna continued as a host respectively. In 2018, the show was adapted into Marathi under Viacom 18 and hosted by Mahesh Manjrekar. The next language adaptation was Malayalam, which was produced by Star India and hosted by Mohanlal. Later in 2021 another version was adopted called Bigg Boss OTT where its episodes were shown on Voot which is hosted by Karan Johar.