[The_Long_Run]

A psychologist previously employed by BB regrets his involvement in the creation of 'a mindless monster'. Has this series moved the goal-posts even further to try to bolster flagging viewer numbers?

Big Brother has faced complaints of exploitation since its launch in 2000. A psychologist, David Wilson, briefly employed by Big Brother, has publicly accused the show of lacking ethics.

“The producers assured me the programme was a genuine psychological study of the human condition, but I soon found it was nothing of the sort," he said.

“The real agenda was to attract viewers by manufacturing controversy and conflict. Talk of ethical standards was a smokescreen.”

A contestant from the Netherlands version, where the show debuted, recently told of how he turned to alcohol and drugs and then suffered five breakdowns after appearing on the first series of the show.

“If it's true that I helped to create that mindless monster, I'm not too proud of it," he said.

Encouraging makers Endemol to "put it in a museum for weird artefacts of television history,” he said that if he had known what the after-effects of the show were, “I would never have signed up”.

http://entertainment.timesonline.co....cle6731698.ece