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Special report: Big Brother | Television
8am

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Big Brother veteran warns new stars

Dominic Timms
Friday May 28, 2004


Big Brother: 'not so much as a thank you'

A former Big Brother star has urged the contestants who will join the fifth series of the show tonight not to go ahead because they will live to regret the move for years to come.
Dean O'Loughlin, who says he has had to bear the tag of "the boring one from Big Brother 2" says he deeply regrets joining the series and the pain it has caused his family.

He said he got nothing out of the show and while "Big Brother has earned 16 industry awards to date, and presenters and producers accept plaudits" there had never been "so much as a thank you to the people inside the house".

O'Loughlin said the show's production company deliberately sets out to follow prescriptive storylines in order to maximise ratings, pays "peanuts" to contestants and "coerces" family and friends into appearing on the show.

"I feel for my newest kin, about to sacrifice themselves on the altar of entertainment. I feel like I'm watching kids on a lilo paddling into a tidal wave. If I knew who they were and could give them advice, it would be simple: don't do it unless you have to. And if you have to, ask yourself why."

He said the majority of past Big Brother contestants though the show's producer, Endemol, has portrayed them "inaccurately'" or "unfairly".

He conducted a poll among 51 of the contestants to have taken part since the reality show made its debut four years ago. All but two said they, or another housemate, had been misrepresented by Endemol.

"Quite simply, the success of this multimillion pound TV production has nothing to do with chance. It's not allowed to hinge on incidents that may or may not happen.

"Housemates are carefully chosen to fill roles and directors follow specific story lines to give the show form. If housemates are lucky they might be seen as a likeable, fluffy, laugh-a-minute clowns. But if they are not, then they may well be carrying the mantle of boorish villain around for the rest of their lives."

O'Loughlin is the first former housemate to break the embargo on writing stories not vetted by Endemol about the show, and the first to pen a book. Contestants must sign away all rights in the show in perpetuity before they are allowed into the Big Brother house.

He said while success stories connected with the show did exist, they were few and far between.

"Even a conservative estimate results in 75% of ex-housemates struggling to adapt and get on with their lives," he said.

"Ex-housemates live in a curious no man's land. The frustrating limbo wherein most housemates are forced to reside can be a very disheartening place," he adds in his book, Living in the Box: An Adventure in Reality TV, which he is selling on internet auction site eBay.

Calling for some sort of regulation of reality TV, he said until such programmes offered contestants at least minimal amounts of protection, TV companies would be free to continue to take advantage of contestants.

"Somewhere in the future, when television companies are bound by law to limit their exploitation of the subjects at its centre, reality TV will be able to grow up. However, until there is some sort of body like Ofcom actually regulating Big Brother, most contestants will leave the show with a legacy of misrepresentation and misery."

A spokesman for Endemol said it was well known that O'Loughlin had an axe to grind against the show.

"It's not been a secret that he has been complaining about the show for years. We see no foundation in the allegations but have not see the book."

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