2001 winner Brian Dowling is the favourite to win Ultimate Big Brother Channel 4 bids farewell to one of its biggest brands later tonight with the final of Ultimate Big Brother.
The long-running reality game show has been a summer staple on C4 since 2000.
Big Brother has been a huge ratings hit for the channel, with peak viewing of around 8 million in 2002, but audience interest has waned in recent years.
Former air steward Brian Dowling is the bookies’ favourite to win Friday night’s show – which features favourite housemates from the past 10 years.
“Not in my wildest dreams did I ever think it would go for 10 years.”
Davina McCall
“Not in my wildest dreams did I ever think it would go for 10 years,” host Davina McCall told the BBC’s 5 live Breakfast programme.
“I’ve loved this show and I’ve been a fan. If you’re going to work on this programme you have to be a huge fan… you have to know and love and live and breathe it.”
Some production staff at Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire were reported to be tearful as they turned up for work on the final show.
Channel 4 announced last summer it would not be renewing its deal with programme-maker Endemol. At the time it said the show “had reached a natural end point on Channel 4 and it’s time to move on”.
The show – and its celebrity spin-off – has been an important source of advertising revenue for the broadcaster. C4 has said it is allocating funds which would have been spent on Big Brother into new drama.
The channel’s autumn season for 2010 includes docu-soap Seven Days in Notting Hill, in which viewers will be able to follow the lives of people as they actually happen.
Sam Dowler, features writer for Now magazine, told the BBC: “Big Brother has changed the way that celebrity is seen in this country.”
He said that when the show first started in 2000, it was the first time people on TV had been seen all day long. Viewers “almost became friends with these people”, he said.
“As the years have gone by, the people have become more fame-hungry – they know what they are in there for and it’s not the same show.”
However, Big Brother may not be gone for good. Five TV’s new owner Richard Desmond is reported to be interested in reviving the show.
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Big Brother winner Brian Belo on the significance of the Channel 4 reality show
Big Brother thrust previous unknowns like the late Jade Goody, “Nasty” Nick Bateman and Kate Lawler into the media spotlight.
It has also courted controversy, including in 2007 when Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty won Celebrity Big Brother following a series of rows with Goody, who was accused of bullying and racism.
The 11th and final series of Big Brother began in June and ran for 76 days until 24 August.
This winning housemate, Josie Gibson, from Bristol, immediately joined the Ultimate Big Brother show after her victory, but quit after just two days.
Brian Dowling, who won the second series in 2001, is expected to beat competition from other former contestants who include Ulrika Jonsson, Victor Ebuwa, Nick Bateman and Nikki Grahame.
Bookies Paddy Power and William Hill both made Dowling the favourite to win, with odds of 2/9.
The other two finalists are Chantelle Houghton, who won Celebrity Big Brother in 2006 despite being not actually famous, and her ex-husband, former Ordinary Boys singer Sam Preston.
Housemates held a “funeral service” for the show on Thursday, and a group of 18 former housemates – including first series winner Craig Phillips – have recorded a video miming to Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman’s Time To Say Goodbye.
The video, which also includes footage of Jade Goody, who died in 2009, will be screened on Friday’s Big Brother’s Little Brother show on E4 ahead of the final.
Speaking about Goody, Davina McCall said: “We’re going to celebrate her tonight and the mark that she made on this programme.
“She’ll never be forgotten – she was a huge, huge, huge part of this show.”
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