A Senior executive at Channel 4 has refused to answer a question whether they are interested in buying for the rights to Big Brother.
Following a Channel 4 advertising event in London today, MarketingWeek asked the sales director, Jonathan Allan, if bosses at the former home of Big Brother were interested in acquiring the rights to the show once again. He didn’t answer.
His response does not indicate Channel 4’s position with Big Brother and it’s spin-off, Celebrity Big Brother, but it does mark the first time since the show was axed from their schedules in September 2010 that they have not denied having any interest in returning it to it’s original home.
In 2010, Channel 4 aired their final three series of the show, with the seventh series of Celebrity Big Brother, eleventh series of Big brother and their only series of Ultimate Big Brother, which was won by ex-presenter Brian Dowling, who was axed from his presenter position on Channel 5 in 2013. Channel 4’s cheif executive David Abraham also said that he “personally would” rule out the possibility that Big Brother could return to the channel.
At today’s event, he insisted that Channel 4 “is not looking to purchase Channel 5, saying that the channel “not worth” the £700million asking price which Richard Desmond reportedly put the channel up for sale at.
Big Brother UK debuted on Channel 4 back in July 2000, and ran for 22 series in total which included eleven regular series with members of the public, and seven Celebrity editions. Channel 5 then acquired the rights to the show in April 2011, before renewing it for a further two years in April 2012.
Currently, the contract is due to expire at the end of the year, after the fifteenth civilian and fourteenth Celebrity edition. Channel 5 has so far remained tight-lipped on whether it is planning to sign a new contract, but has continued to commission new programmes during the process of the channel’s sale.
Big Brother 15 is expected to begin in June 2014 with the fourteenth Celebrity Big Brother set to follow later on
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