[LEE]

THE CELEBRITY BIG BROTHER HOUSE

The Celebrity Big Brother house, designed by Markus Blee, is located at Elstree studios, Hertfordshire. The house will be unchanged from Big Brother 3, apart from a new sofa and new beds.

The open plan design of the main living space includes lounge, kitchen and dining areas. There are also two bedrooms, a storeroom, a wetroom with a bath and shower and separate toilet, and a diary room. The garden contains a swimming pool and a chicken coop.

Once again there is a storeroom that housemates can only enter when instructed by Big Brother.


Technical Specifications

The Celebrity Big Brother house is, as always, fully equipped with state-of-the-art audio and visual recording equipment to document every movement and every word of all the participants in the house and garden around the clock. Five manned Sony broadcast cameras will follow participants from behind one-way, sound-proof glass.

Staff in the Celebrity Big Brother control room operate an additional 15 remote-controlled cameras in the house, while a further 13 fixed cameras ensure that every area of the house and garden is under surveillance.

Over 40 microphones provide comprehensive audio coverage, and every participant wears a compulsory radio microphone. The Celebrity Big Brother team works around-the-clock and, even at midnight, there are three producers and two directors on duty, plus 22 other crew members.


THE RULES

The usual Big Brother rules apply to Celebrity Big Brother. These include the following:

* There is no contact with the outside world
* Housemates are filmed 24 hours a day and must wear microphones at all times
* Housemates are not permitted to discuss nominations or try to influence anyone else’s nominations
* All tasks are compulsory

Personal Belongings

Occupants are allowed to bring one main suitcase into the house, which will be the same size for all occupants, and is only to contain clothing. In addition, a small suitcase containing luxury items is allowed.

The celebrities may take in one bottle of wine, or 3 bottles/cans of beer (max. ½ litre per bottle/can). They are allowed up to 100 cigarettes or 50g rolling tobacco.

Toiletries and make-up are allowed, in reasonable quantities, if they can fit into the luxury items suitcase. However, lip and eyebrow pencils are not allowed, as all implements that could be used for writing are banned from the house.

Other items banned from the house include writing materials, mobile phones, radios, walkmans, CDs or CD players, computers, PDAs (Psion, Palm Pilot etc), calendars, clocks and watches, drugs and narcotics, personal medication (except in consultation with Big Brother) and weapons.

Housemates may gain an additional supply of food, alcohol and other luxuries in the house, dependent on the group’s performance in regular compulsory tasks which will be performed live on Channel 4 or E4.


The Eviction Process

On Day 3 in the house each participant will visit the Diary Room and nominate two fellow housemates for eviction live on air. The two or more housemates receiving the most votes in the celebrities’ poll are put to the viewers for the public vote, conducted via telephone, text message, website and digital TV. The resulting eviction will occur live on Day 5.

Over ten days, celebrities will be knocked out by the eviction process. At the end of the series the nation will then vote for the winner.

Viewers can vote for the housemate they want to evict either by telephone (calls cost 25p per call), text message (25p plus the cost of sending a text with your service provider) or, for digital television viewers, via remote control (also costing 25p per vote). 15p from each vote cast via telephone and interactive TV will go to charity. 10p from each vote cast via text messaging will go to charity.

Housemates are not allowed to discuss their nominations with other house members or to try to influence anyone else’s nominations.