[Scarlett.]

IT was the TV show that defined a decade, with an impact on society that cannot be ignored.

But yesterday The Sun broke the news that the next series of Big Brother on Ch4 will be the last.

When it hit our screens in July 2000, millions found themselves glued to the antics of a bunch of young people locked together in a purpose-built house and isolated from the world, their every movement and sound caught on camera.

We were so entranced we even watched them sleeping.

It was clear that broadcasters had hit on a winning formula.

Their first batch of housemates included a lesbian ex-nun, a scheming city banker and an eccentric model who had visions of pop fame - but finished up making porn flicks.

To say Big Brother caused controversy over the years is like saying the Pope wears a hat. But the worst moments were so upsetting because in its best moments BB mirrored British culture and society.

As we moved through the Noughties, the show captured human foibles and embarrassing characteristics familiar to us all - arrogance, selfishness, greed and snobbery.

It broke TV taboos: Couples had fumbled, half-hidden sex, security guards came on set to halt violent rows and, in the show's celebrity spin-off, an MP lapped milk from a saucer as he pretended to be a cat.

The height of infamy was reached when the late Jade Goody stunned the globe with her racist comments to Indian housemate Shilpa Shetty.

Amid the blazing arguments, the scenes opened up the very British question of race and what it means to be a minority living in modern Britain.

When Shilpa was told about the axe falling on BB yesterday, she conceded: "After a point people got bored - it got a bit contrived and people lost interest."

To date we've clocked up 768 days of TV coverage and even though housemates are still presented as a microcosm of society, each year they become less and less like our neighbours.

Celebrity culture had reaped its natural reward and the show began to drown under a stream of wannabes.

Standing true to capturing the mood of a generation of British youth, it's even more appropriate that Big Brother's own celebrity dissolved as kids turned to social networking sites for their kicks.

As ratings plunged, so did BB contestants' chances of getting in free to their favourite night spots after they left the show.

From highs approaching 10million viewers, the show has lost eighty per cent of its audience.

Just two million now watch, the daytime live feed has been axed and the main show is a shadow of its old self.

C4 chief Kevin Lygo said yesterday: "We have a public remit to champion new forms of creativity. That remit is now what is telling us the programme has reached a natural end point and it's time to move on."

So farewell Big Brother - soon we won't be watching you any more.

____________________

Big Brother Memories

LAST night some of the show's biggest names give their thoughts on the demise of Big Brother.

"It was the making of me, but I don't know if I've fallen out of love with it - I was there for seven years and I can't keep watching. I haven't been blown away by the cast this year."

DERMOT O'LEARY
Former BBLB host

"I felt a bit sad, but only for ten minutes. Then I just felt relieved. I think the show is exhausted now. You can change the personalities and characters in the house but the format of them living together and people voting to get rid of them means it can't really change very much."

CRAIG PHILLIPS
BB1 winner

"I'm really sad Big Brother has been axed. I'm still a fan to this day, and it will leave a huge gap in my summers. The show has been amazing to me and given so many people loads of opportunities. It's produced some colourful characters; some we will miss and others we wish would go away!"

BRIAN DOWLING
BB2 winner

"Big Brother was a wonderful opportunity for Jade and it led to an amazing adventure which had its highs and lows for her but changed her life and she was eternally grateful. It gave her the opportunity to travel to places she would never have seen, to meet people she'd never have met and to give her boys wonderful treats. The UK produced one of the biggest reality stars ever known."

MAX CLIFFORD
On behalf of Jade Goody, BB3 star

"It's good to put the show on hold for a few years. But we'd love to see it back and bigger than ever with new exciting ideas."

SAM & AMANDA MARCHANT
BB8

"It's so sad. Big Brother is a national treasure. People love to hate it but, as much as they slag it off, it always takes over people's lives. I suppose people are tired of seeing the same stuff. Going on the show is one of the best things I ever did."

NIKKI GRAHAME
BB7

"It's a sad day for reality TV. The show will leave a lasting legacy in British television. I'd like to think another channel could see the benefits of having a show like it and that it can continue in some form."

BRIAN BELO
BB8 winner

"I adore Big Brother. It's been with me for the best ten years of my life. It's funny, smart, innovative, thought-provoking entertainment at its best. I am proud to be part of it. Let's make next year's series the best ever!"

DAVINA McCALL
BB presenter

It's eaten our soul

By ALLY ROSS

Sun TV Critic

BIG Brother, day 85, and for this week's task the Channel 4 production team have strapped a dead pony to the bus stop, handed out horse whips and asked the housemates to flog their dead nag.

Well, they might as well do. It's exactly what Channel 4 have been doing ever since 2002, one of the key years in BB history.

It was the Jade series. The summer it turned into a freak show, for talentless fame vampires, and never really came back.

There have been other reasons for its welcome demise, of course. The cripplingly dull fourth series, Davina's post-eviction interviews and Endemol's constant meddling with the format, which reached its sorry nadir in 2006 when the idiots put tantrum-machine Nikki Grahame back into the house after she'd been voted out.

However if you're looking for a single reason why the show's been axed it's Celebrity Big Brother, series IV, in 2006.

A bunch of nonentities arguing about a shopping list was never going to be the same after we'd seen a sitting MP impersonate a cat. So we really should thank George Galloway for his contribution.

Helping to get Big Brother axed is, in all likelihood, the most positive thing the meddling little, right-on cretin will ever do.

Because this show has eaten away at the soul of Britain for the last eight years and harmed Channel 4 irreparably. A shame.

Big Brother started out as one of the most interesting shows on television, but ended up one of the most damaging in its history.

Good riddance.


By NASTY NICK

BB1 bad boy

FOR ten years, Big Brother has been in the headlines for the right reasons - with winners like transsexual Nadia Almada and Tourette's sufferer Pete Bennett - and for the wrong reasons - like Jade Goody bullying Shilpa Shetty.

It has made us laugh, cry and scream at the TV.

Big Brother has everything that a soap opera doesn't have.

But the reason Channel 4 have killed off their golden goose is probably down to a drop in ratings and not the creative reasons the channel have given.

The trouble is, it has had the same boring ideas and the same boring tasks every year.

Housemates are a cross between the Morlocks from HG Wells's The Time Machine and the cast of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Big Brother will always do well if the tasks are funny, the people are normal and if the situation isn't contrived.

Look back to the first series. We had to make our own bread, look after the chickens and fight tooth and nail for any alcohol.

We didn't even think anyone was watching us.

Having wannabe models and people discussing how much they will get from a magazine deal when they come out is a total turn-off for me.

However, I don't think they had to axe it. If they could have brought back the original producers and only had ten people in the house at the start - because more than that is too many - then you could have made it popular again.

But don't advertise for contestants to be on Big Brother. Advertise for contestants for a new reality show. You might only get 10,000 people applying but they would be real people and they are the most entertaining.

Maybe it will come back after ten years with a different production team, a different presenter and normal people.

Or maybe as a Big Brother "gold", with the favourite contestants from each series in one house.