[Gavin]

Originally Posted by Tom

BB started the reality TV boom and its the first show where every single decision was made by the public which lead on to other shows.

Popstars began in New Zealand in early 1999, before Big Brother even started in Holland. A core aspect of Popstars was the fact that viewers could vote.

Big Brother just took the same aspect and made sure that every single decision was made by the public. It did not make up the concept of reality TV show phone voting. That had already been done. Big Brother itself is largley influenced by The Real World which began in 1992.

No TV shows had spin off shows before Big Brother (in the BBLB sense, not Celebrity BB sense).

Actually that's incorrect. Spin offs have been around for years. In 1960, a programme called the Andy Griffiths Show began which is a spin-off of The Danny Thomas Show. Check it out on Google if you don't believe me.

Frasier is a spin-off of Cheers. Beverly Hills 90210 spined off to Melrose Place. All long before BB.

It was a defining format and a lot of other shows have copied elements from it such as I'm a Celebrity, Fame Academy, Love Island, Back to Reality, The Farm, Hells Kitchen etc. Its also been used as a model to create interest in shows like X Factor and The Apprentice.

Fame Academy is more influenced by Popstars. Hell's Kitchen, also, I don't think was heavily influenced by Big Brother.

X Factor is just an evolution of Pop Idol which itself was an evolution of Popstars. I disagree about The Apprentice, there's no phone voting and there's little seen of the contestants inside the house. Most of it is based around the business tasks. It's a very loose link to Big Brother.

The others, I agree were influenced a lot by Big Brother. But it's no different from a drama being influenced by another drama which was made years ago. You could argue that EastEnders and all these other soaps are influenced from Corrie, which itself was influenced from radio soap The Guilding Light.

It was one of the very first show to use celebrities as the contestants.

Not true. Celebrity Jeopardy had been running on TV since 1996.

We had no z list celebrity culture before Big Brother which eventually created a huge interest in actual celebrities. There was a bit of interest before but not to todays extent.

The Z list celebrity culture was influenced by BB, indeed. But I think the Internet and the rise of trashy magazines arguably had a bigger part in that.