[zakman440]

Production company Endemol has reportedly turned down a seven-figure offer from TV3 for the rights to Celebrity Big Brother 2015 in the Republic of Ireland.

According to The Sun, the Irish broadcaster made a bid worth over €1million (£783,000) to screen the new series of the show.

But Endemol is said to have rejected the deal because it already gets “a lot of Irish viewers”.

The newspaper’s mole said: “The offer was more than a million for Celebrity Big Brother, but maker Endemol turned it down. TV3 thought it would be worth it, especially this year with all the big names going into it. But they didn’t want to sell it to an Irish station because they get a lot of Irish viewers.”

A TV3 insider added: “The bosses are looking at loads of different shows, but Celebrity Big Brother was one they were interested in for sure. Just because it didn’t work out this year doesn’t mean it’s not something we won’t be following up in the future.”

Channel 5 owns the rights to produce the Big Brother format in the UK and Ireland, and accepts auditions from Irish hopefuls for its version of the show.

However, despite Endemol’s apparent claim of a high Irish viewership, neither C5 nor Big Brother are officially available in the Republic.

TV3 is now run by C5′s former director of programming Jeff Ford, who swapped jobs with current C5 boss Ben Frow in 2013.

At the time of Big Brother’s revival in 2011, Frow was interested in acquiring Irish broadcast rights for TV3′s digital offshoot 3E – but negotiations fell through as they were too expensive, with a source telling bbspy: “We are talking millions to buy it.”

Read more: http://www.bbspy.co.uk/cbb15/news/01...#ixzz3OA1P9JeO

This isn't a good move imo, they could have given the show a wider audience if they'd have accepted.