Switzerland braced for Big Brother

Cameras will follow participants everywhere and capture even their most intimate moments Keystone

This is the weekend that "Big Brother" finally arrives in Switzerland. It's not a political tyranny, but a television game show that has attracted huge audiences across the world.

After the phenomenal success of the television programme in the Netherlands, Germany and Britain, 10 Swiss people have agreed to live together for up to 15 weeks in a purpose-built house. Cameras and microphones will follow their every movement 24 hours a day.

The 10 contestants will take over a house in the village of Glattfelden in northern Switzerland and their daily lives will become public property. A total of 26 cameras and 60 microphones will follow their every move. They’ll even be filmed using the shower and the toilet.

Every two weeks, two people will be nominated for eviction by their housemates. Which of the two actually gets booted out depends on the viewers, who can phone with their votes. The last person left in the house wins SFr150,000 ($86,000).

More than 8,000 people applied to take part in Big Brother Switzerland. The identities of the final cast will only be revealed when the first programme airs on Sunday on the private television channel, TV3.

“The age range is between 23 and 37,” says TV3’s head of entertainment, Christophe Bürge. “They range from a circus entertainer to a self-made software millionaire. It’s a mirror of the country.”

It would be more correct to say that the programme is a mirror of German-speaking Switzerland, because, to avoid language difficulties, the show’s contestants come from seven German-speaking cantons.

Versions of the programme in Germany and Britain have already attracted huge television audiences and created celebrities of its participants. They’ve made records and appeared on countless television chat shows.

“It’s a new format that takes ordinary people and puts them in an extraordinary situation,” says TV3 boss, Jurg Wildberger. “It’s also a programme than can involve people on ‘multi-platforms’ – the Internet, the telephone and the television.”

TV3 will show edited highlights of events in the house every weekday at 2000 in the evening. On Sundays television celebrity, Dani Fohrler, will host a live talk show to catch up with the contestants, their friends and families.

“It’s very interesting to have a show where the cast aren’t actors and have no show concept. They live and that’s all,” says Fohrler.

Internet users will be able to follow the movements of the housemates 24 hours a day through special web-cams.

If the experience of other countries is repeated, the strain on contestants will be tremendous. In Britain, one of the ten became a national hate figure and was thrown out of the house when he was caught trying to manipulate the eviction nominations.

One challenge facing the contestants is how to cope with boredom: the house in which they live has no television, telephone or radio.

“We have a team of psychologists on call 24 hours a day and two doctors,” says Christophe Bürge.

The housemates also have access to a diary room where they can speak to Big Brother via a camera. Naturally the chats will be broadcast to the nation.

TV3 is hoping the show will help it win a more significant audience share from the state owned channels. The broadcaster has remained tight-lipped about how much the whole project is costing, but there have been rumours that the expense may cripple the fledgling station.

“TV3 has been around for about a year now and we expect Big Brother to strengthen our position,” says Jurg Wildberger. “It will appeal to our audience which is young and active.”

Wildberger says Big Brother will increase TV3’s total audience share to around 6.5 per cent from the current 4.1 per cent.

Big Brother Switzerland will also be interesting for what it reveals about the national character, at least in the German-speaking part of the country.

“It is Swiss and the characters will not be as extreme as in other countries,” says Wildberger. “There won’t be as much drinking as in the UK version, for example. In Spain, one couple got married. But even so, I expect a lot from the Swiss people.”

by Michael Hollingdale