BIG BROTHER AFRICA

M-Net has announced that a fifth edition of Big Brother Africa will begin a week after the World Cup ends and that it will air 24/7 for 91 days on DStv Channel 198, which can be accessed by DStv Premium and Compact subscribers.

Once again the prize money will be US$200,000 and the show will be aired in over 40 countries across the continent.

As a cost-cutting measure, M-Net has announced it won’t be calling for entries for the new show, instead head-hunting contestants from a database of entries submitted for previous seasons.

"We want to invest more broadly in Big Brother Africa Season 5 and having already been introduced to a world of interesting characters from previous searches, there’s limited value in spending extensively in another search for contestants," said M-Net Africa Managing Director Biola Alabi.

"We’ll still be looking for entertaining persons with a sense of humour, a love of adventure and the ability to enjoy the very exciting Big Brother experience.

"In the past we’ve spent widely to find contestants in 14 countries. This year, we’re using these funds to develop a gutsy new series, recreating the house in a very different way and focusing on putting new technology into place."

One technological change already in place is that this year DStv channel 198 will feature two television feeds. There will be two streams of video and audio coming out of the house and viewers can simply pick the one that they wish to watch.

Nigerian television and radio star I.K. Osakioduwa will return to the Big Brother stage for a second time.

Contestants will once again be drawn from 14 countries – Angola, Botswana, Ghana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Big Brother Africa 5 will be produced by Endemol and filmed on location in Johannesburg. This year, the house will feature 53 cameras and 100 microphones.

So if you entered the show before don't be surprised to get a call from a BBA producer one of these days, inviting you to spend 91 days in reality hell.