Throng

Big Biggie news! Bigger Than An Elephant’s Donger!

Before we get into a recap of last night’s highlights show, on BB’s website this morning, there’s official confirmation that Channel 4 will no longer host BB after next year. Here’s what the statement says…

'Channel 4 has announced today that it will not be renewing its rights deal for Big Brother when its contract with programme maker Endemol ends in 2010. This means that next year's series of Big Brother and Celebrity Big Brother will be the last on Channel 4.

Kevin Lygo, Director of Television and Content, said the decision not to recommission Big Brother had been dictated more by creative considerations than commercial ones. He explained: "Big Brother is still profitable for Channel 4 despite its reduced popularity and there could have been the option to renew it on more favourable terms. That's what a purely commercial broadcaster would have done, but Channel 4 has a public remit to champion new forms of creativity. That remit to push the boundaries has been an essential part of the weird chemistry behind Big Brother's success, but it's now what is telling us that the programme has reached a natural end point on Channel 4 and it's time to move on."

Julian Bellamy, Head of Channel 4 added, "Big Brother has been our most influential and popular programme over the last decade. It's been hugely innovative in its own right, has provoked a really astonishing level of public debate and has been an underappreciated showcase for social diversity and youth culture. Its success has also helped support an extraordinary range of creativity across Channel 4; inevitably we're both excited and ever-so-slightly terrified by the prospect of getting by without it.

"We're very grateful to everyone at Endemol who has worked so hard to keep the show fresh and engaging for so long and to the viewers who have remained loyal to the programme and who will be disappointed by our decision. The final series will be an opportunity to give Big Brother an appropriate send-off and celebrate one of the most extraordinary programmes not just in the history of Channel 4 but of TV in general."

Philip Edgar Jones, Creative Director of Big Brother adds: "On behalf of the whole Big Brother team who work so hard I would like to say a big thank you to all the show's fans and housemates for helping us ensure it remains the biggest show on Channel 4 even after all these years. Big thanks also to Channel 4 for all their support in what continues to be a great partnership. We'll be back next year and it's going to be a blast... and after that, well, Big Brother will get back to you, you can count on it."'

So, next year is the last time it’ll be on Channel 4, and unless E4 picks up the rights to it, I can’t see it having anywhere near the punch it’s had in this and previous years. And if it is shown on another channel, will Davina still host it? If she doesn’t, it’ll be too weird and I probably won’t even watch it anymore. Eek.

Anyway, onto a recap of last night’s show and it was by far the most entertaining of this series. It had it all; bitchy fights, backstabbing, gossip and intrigue. Brill. Siavash of course was Public Enemy No1 in the house for his decision not to nominate, which meant that Sophie and Charlie automatically got a vote each.

Look at the woman on that spot!

Siavash reckoned he’d worked out who everyone had nominated and by refusing to vote, he’d effectively be putting himself up against David and Marcus in this week’s eviction. However, it hasn’t worked out like he wanted and it’s just him and Marcus up, but before the house knew that, all hell broke loose when Siavash admitted to not nominating.

Oddly, the only person who didn’t try to rip him a new one was Sophie, who might well have found herself up for eviction by his actions, but she defended him throughout, saying she understood that he wasn’t just trying to look like a nice guy but was trying to get himself nominated.

The rest of the house argued – loudly – that if that was the case, then why hadn’t Siavash just asked everyone to nominate him, but the point of his wanting the ‘no free rides’ thing is that if he was up, it was for genuine reasons, not because he’d asked people to nominate him.

Rodrigo fails to understand the concept of 'doggy' leaving Sophie more confused than ever

Anyway, it all got very heated and ended up with Rodrigo looking like he was going to shi*t out a small cow and Charlie dragging Siavash’s girlfriend – who may or may not be his ex now – into it and accusing him of cheating on her and also of trying to make himself seem like a nice guy in order to stay in the house. Rodrigo and David went off on several rants about how they’d signed a contract to be on Big Brother and follow the rules, with David citing his honourable upbringing as having given him respect for authority, and in this case, that’s BB and their rules.

What of course they’ve failed to realise is that rule breaking makes for interesting telly, far more than rule obeying.

Talking of which, it seems that yesterday, BB announced that the housemates were boring and they should do something entertaining. So, much ‘entertaining’ followed but the biggest event was a break out of the house and into the camera runs. We’ll get to see that on tonight’s show, but the main news to come out of that is that BB has told the housemates that because of that rule break, the prize fund has gone from £100k to… nowt, nada, zip. Yikes! I can’t wait to see all that going off, and I really can’t wait for Friday. It’s a proper clash of the titans this week.

So who’ll get your vote? Ninja wan*er Marcus or Smooth As A Cashmere Codpiece Siavash? My vote’s going to Marcus, simply because he’s just plain boring now. All he does is lie under that sodding duvet and whistle. There’s only so much duvet hiding and whistling a girl can take, and I for one have had my fill of it now. Roll on tonight’s show and Friday’s eviction! Yay!