Why youth yawn for Big brother Africa

What you need to know:

  • According to the source organisers have been working behind the scenes to get the show back on air and auditions are scheduled to take place mid next year. The source also indicated that the show was likely to start around July in Johannesburg involving several Sub Saharan countries.

Dar es Salaam. This week rumour broke out that after a Four-year hiatus, continental reality TV show Big Brother Africa was set to return on the screens in 2018 much to the excitement of the youth.

According to the source organisers have been working behind the scenes to get the show back on air and auditions are scheduled to take place mid next year. The source also indicated that the show was likely to start around July in Johannesburg involving several Sub Saharan countries.

The show initially involved 12 countries within Africa (Angola, Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia & Zimbabwe) with two countries (Ethiopia and Mozambique) being added in season 4 and two other countries (Liberia and Sierra Leone) were added in season 7 while Rwanda was added in season 9. In the past editions each country provided at least one contestant living in an isolated house while trying to avoid being evicted by viewers and ultimately winning huge amounts of cash prize at the end of the show.

The last winner Idris Sultan took home some $300,000 in 2014 after he outwitted other contestants to win the edition. Speaking to The Beat the head of communications at MultiChoice Tanzania Johnson Mshana said it was not true and he was not aware of any such arrangements .

“Multichoice is currently running a parallel contest called the Big Brother Nigeria and that is what we are concentrated on at the moment,” said Mshana.

In 2016 in a communiqué, M-Net indicated that they were busy working on other regional Big Brother productions, with Big Brother Angola being their first production before embarking on the BBA Naija.

“At the moment, the team is busy re-evaluating the strategic direction of Big Brother Africa. Be assured that when it returns, it will be bigger and better,” read the statement from M-Net.

In 2014, BBA Hotshots which was the 9th edition of the reality show was postponed by a month after a fire swept through the Sasani Studios complex in Johannesburg, the seat of the Big Brother Africa house.

But the question that many will be asking is why young men and women find it compelling to participate in reality TV such as Big Brother Africa.

Reality shows are a huge platform for ordinary people from all walks of life to test their worth against other competitors and to show the world what they are capable of.

They also get the opportunity to be groomed and trained by celebrity judges who are established professionals and heavyweights in the field.

Winning any of these shows as either Big Brother’s Uti or Idris will tell you may mean ticket to riches, fame and stardom. No wonder several thousand youngsters aspire to be get on the show and win.

The $100,000 prize money for the winner of the first Big Brother Africa was a major incentive for the 12 housemates to participate, but like housemates worldwide, there was the added benefit of a taste of 15 minutes of fame.

Once a housemate leaves the house, be it after two weeks or 100 days, they seemed to follow the same fame-led career paths.

Television appearances, a chart single, a radio presenter spot here and there, a charity project, and then they disappear into the land of ‘former’ reality TV stars.

These shows changed lives, and indeed it created a generation of overnight celebrities who would soon command a massive following on the different social media platforms.

The lime light yield connections for lifetime as some have gone on to find partners whom they ended up getting married to such as Mwisho Mwapamba and Namibia’s Meryl or Tanzania’s Elizabeth Gupta and Nigeria’s Kelvin Pam.

The last to taste this success was Idris Sultan who has since become a hit in Tanzanian entertainment circles and brand ambassador to some of the big brands locally and beyond.

When television production company Endemol brought reality TV show Big Brother to Africa in 2003, it became the first time Africans from 12 different countries were placed under the magnified lens of reality TV.

It was an instant hit, for it was the first time Pan-Africanism was put to test and they showed that what the politicians had failed to do in decades could be done quite easily.

Though there have been critics against the show given the approach that it took with contestants drinking, nudity and sex, today Africa is not the same thanks to the exposure that BBA brought on TV screens.

Some have blamed the show for giving the contestants false hope of stardom saying after days of living lavishly, the contestants soon find themselves back to square one with some resorting to substance abuse.

But on average most of the contestants who have left the house have leveraged on their participation and their lives have never been the same.

It is no wonder that young men today can’t help but long for the show’s return.