Big Brother (Australian TV series) season 7

The seventh season of the Australian reality television series, Big Brother, also known as Big Brother 2007, began on 22 April 2007. Despite a drop in [|ratings] compared to previous seasons, and a number of [|controversies], the then Big Brother executive producer Kris Noble considers the year's season a success. At the end of this season's [|finale] broadcast 30 July 2007, it was announced by host Gretel Killeen that Big Brother would be returning for an eighth season in 2008. although she did not return.
In the finale Aleisha Cowcher was announced as the winner. She won by the closest winning margin ever in the Australian version. The news the following day reported a margin of 51% versus 49% – a difference of 65 votes. This was the last season hosted by Gretel Killeen.

Development

During the sixth-season finale, a seventh season of the show was confirmed. Auditions were held throughout November and December 2006, taking place in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Hobart, and Darwin. The house this season was confirmed to have an 'eco-friendly' theme and style; It featured a pedal-powered washing machine, a rubber garden turf made from recycled car tyres and carpets made from goat hair. On 18 April 2007, after housemates were put into lockdown, it was revealed that there would be no prize money this season. The launch date of the seventh season was rumoured to be 22 April 2007. These rumours were later confirmed.

No housemates on ''Rove''

Housemates this season were not featured as guests on variety/talk show Rove. Previously housemates would appear on Rove in the days following their eviction. As of 2007 Rove aired on Sunday nights at 8:30, immediately after the Big Brother eviction show. As Rove is taped in Melbourne, Victoria it was impossible for the housemates to travel so quickly to appear on both shows. Even so, Rove chose not to cross to evicted contestants following the eviction shows, as Rove would not start airing immediately after Big Brother.

Format

Like other seasons of the show, the series revolves around a group of strangers living in a house together with no communication with the outside world. Referred to as "housemates", the group is constantly filmed during their time in the house and are not permitted to communicate with those filming them, except with the titular "Big Brother" – an embodiment of the show's producers.
Every week, the housemates would vote who they wished to leave the house, and those with the most votes are nominated for eviction, with the Australian public voting for which nominees should be evicted, with the evictee leaving during a live show. This process continued until only one housemate remained to win the grand prize.

Twists

Big Brother 2007 introduced several new elements not seen in previous seasons of the series.

Prize money

Big Brother originally informed the housemates that there was zero prize money. Later they were informed that they could earn prize money by completing various tasks. This was revealed at the conclusion of the secret relationship twist.

Secret Relationships

It was revealed on the Game On episode that housemates [|Hayley] and [|Andrew] were secretly in a relationship. Big Brother set the task to both housemates to enter the house and keep their relationship secret for one week. If successful in this task both would be allowed stay in the house; if they failed then one of them would be evicted. All other housemates had individually been challenged by Big Brother to secretly discover who was in a secret relationship, each believing they were the only housemate to be issued this challenge.
Housemate [|Billy] was added on Day 2. Billy is Hayley's former boyfriend and was added specifically to complicate her task of keeping her relationship with Andrew secret. Hayley was not allowed to inform anyone, including Andrew, of Billy's true status. Each day he received a mission from Big Brother to put pressure on Hayley's secret challenge.

Billy's Tasks

Day 2: Before Billy went to bed, he had to say "Goodnight Hayley, sweet dreams".
Day 3: From the moment Hayley woke up, Billy had to "wait on her hand and foot" and become her best friend. He also had to pick a bunch of flowers from the garden and give them to Hayley, and ask her to help pick the herbs.
Day 4: When Billy was asked to take a housemate with him to tend the animals, he had to choose Hayley.
Day 5: Billy had to become Andrew's best friend.

Big Brother confirmed on Day 8 that Billy's mission was an overall success, and his reward was becoming an official Big Brother 2007 housemate on Day 16.
On 29 April episode, Big Brother revealed the secret relationship. Three housemates had correctly guessed Hayley and Billy were involved. As fewer than half of the housemates had guessed correctly, Big Brother deemed Hayley and Andrew as successful in their challenge so both were allowed to stay. Big Brother also revealed that as Hayley and Andrew had completed their task successfully $50,000 had been awarded into the prize pool.

[|White Room]

On 23 April 2007, the four remaining wild-card housemates not selected to enter the House via the public vote on Days 1 and 2 were isolated in the "White Room".
The housemates were Cruz, [|Demet], [|Kara], and [|Harrison]. The White Room and its fixtures and fittings were all entirely white, and the housemates had only white clothes to wear. White Room housemates were provided with a white porridge which fulfilled all nutritional needs. In the centre of the room was a red button. At any time, a housemate could press the red button if they wished to leave. This decision to leave was final and the quitting housemate could not return to the Big Brother House or the White Room. The challenge was that the housemate who stayed in the White Room the longest without pressing the red button would become a legitimate Big Brother housemate and enter the main house with the rest of the housemates.Monitors in the Big Brother House allowed the housemates to watch, without audio, the White Room housemates at all times. The White Room housemates were unaware that they were being watched by the Big Brother housemates.
Cruz was the first white room resident evicted when he pressed the red button after accepting a $750 bribe from Big Brother to whoever pushed the red button first. After Cruz accepted the Bribe, no one else volunteered to leave.
On Day 11 and after 9 days in the White Room, Big Brother told the remaining three White Room housemates that one would enter the House that night, first Big Brother instructed them to vote one of their own off - Kara was evicted when Harrison and Demet voted against her. Then, the Big Brother housemates, after watching the White Room Finalists compete in a Heights Challenge, voted between the White Room Final 2 on who they wanted to enter the house. Demet was voted into the house in an 8–6 vote and became an official housemate.

Housemates' voting

Big Brother Starburst Golden Key

On 29 January 2007, Network Ten, Endemol Southern Star, and Masterfoods announced "Australia's biggest ever integrated television promotion", the Big Brother Starburst Golden Key. This was modeled after a similar promotion on Big Brother UK 7, which would allow a member of the public to enter the Big Brother House as a Housemate via golden tickets in Kit Kat bars. During the promotion, 100 packets of Starburst featured a [|"Golden Key"] - the concept was similar to the Golden Tickets in the story Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. These keys were in the form of a unique alphanumeric code. One hundred codes awarded the holder an all-expenses-paid holiday to the Gold Coast, during which they would participate in a special audition.
During a live special episode called "Golden Key", the 100 winners gathered in the Audience to discover who among them would be selected as the 5 Finalists based on the auditions as well as police and medical checks. By random draw, one Finalist would become a housemate, finding a Golden Key in a randomly selected box of Starburst and be eligible to win the season and all prizes. On Day 18, Nick Sady was announced the "Golden Key" winner and entered the Big Brother House.

''Friday Night Live'' Changes

This year, the winner of [|Friday Night Live] was given greater power in nominations. Replacing the Three Point Twist of previous seasons, the Friday Night Live winner each week this season was required to choose one nominated housemate to be removed from the nomination line-up, and to nominate another to replace them - unlike past seasons, the outcome of their save and nomination was only revleaed to the Housemates shortly before the Sunday Eviction. The winner of Friday Night Live this season was also given the chance to discuss their nominations, both past and present, with their chosen housemate whilst inside the Rewards Room.

Nominations

Week 11 - Australia Cast Nominations Points

The public were able to vote for a Housemate to nomination via SMS for 2 July nominations. The housemate with the most votes received two nomination points, and the next housemate received one point. With the tally counted, [|Michelle] had the most votes from the public and so received an extra two nomination points. [|Daniela] received an extra nomination point. As winner of Friday Night Games Daniela had the power of saving one housemate from eviction. She saved herself.

Week 12 - Australia Nominates & the Housemates Vote to Evict

Big Brother changed the usual format for Week 12 nominations. For this week viewers could nominate housemates, and from the nominated housemates the housemates themselves could vote to evict, reversing the usual procedure.
While housemates were put through the usual nomination procedure and their nominations were screened, unknown to them, their nominations were ignored. Viewer nomination points were counted. On Sunday's eviction, the housemates were surprised by this twist, and then were individually asked to nominate to evict any of the nominated housemates. The nominated housemate with the most votes was to be evicted. Daniela was evicted with a total of 12 points.

The House

Storeroom

All staple foods provided to housemates this year were vegan. The housemates could supplement this with milk and eggs supplied from the farm yard and herbs and mushrooms from the herb garden.

Telephone

For the first time Big Brother Australia featured a telephone in the house. It was situated in the lounge and was shown on the Opening Night broadcast before the housemates entered the house. On Day 37, Big Brother informed housemates that if the phone rang only one housemate could answer it. Joel was nominated to answer it on the housemates' behalf. On Day 52 Joel received a call from Big Brother advising that he would be away from the house and would communicate via the phone to Joel at various times. On Day 58 Andrew picked up the phone as a joke, and was penalised by being sent to the Punishment Room to polish boots. Michelle joined him in the Punishment Room due to the weekly task which involved housemates remaining partnered.
On Day 97 the housemates were allowed to speak with several of the Big Brother UK 8 housemates. The UK Big Brother House also had a telephone and unlike the Australian version this was the first time the phone was used in the UK version.

Chill Out Room

Adjacent to the kitchen was a new room called the "Chill Out Room". As an official rule, no more than three housemates were allowed in the room at a time. It provided a quiet place to talk or relax, away from the rest of the housemates.

Housemates

In this season, producers selected housemates who were generally more sophisticated, modest, intelligent, and with a unique worldview - notable examples being Rebecca Dent, a devout Mormon, and Jamie McDonald, a computer geek. This contrasted with the 2005, 2006 editions and was more in line with the series' genuine "Social Experiment" intention. The change in casting was also an attempt to lower censorship controversies and reputational issues, which resulted from the housemates' overall lascivious and outlandish personality types from 2005 and 2006.
Over the 100-day season, a total of 24 housemates entered the Big Brother House, twelve during the opening night and a further twelve at various points throughout the series. On the opening night, viewers were given the opportunity to vote in two additional housemates, one male and one female, from a selection of six potential housemates, while the remaining four would be isolated in the White Room to compete to enter the house.
The following night, Susannah and Zoran were voted into the house by Australia, along with Billy, who was previously teased as "Mr X", entered the house as a guest with the purpose of jeopardising Andrew and Hayley's secret relationship challenge, as he was Hayley's ex. Billy was not officially recognised as a legitimate housemate until Day 16. Demet, one of the four White Room Wildcards, was voted into the House by the housemates on Day 11, while [|Nick] entered on Day 18 as the winner of the Starburst Golden Key promotion.
A further four Intruders followed, Daniela and [|Laura] on Day 31 and Michelle and [|Zach] on Day 50. In a promotion for the upcoming season of Australian Idol, Idol judge and former Celebrity Big Brother housemate, Kyle Sandilands entered the House as a celebrity guest with a mission from Big Brother to encourage housemates to "be themselves", but left the House early due to a severe migraine. Due to an incident prior to the Big Brother 2007 finale, Intruder Laura was not invited to attend and participate while all other former Big Brother housemates - including White Room wildcards and intruders were present.

Name	Age	Day entered	Day exited	Result
Aleisha Cowcher	20	0	100
Zach Douglas	24	50	100
Travis Perkins	32	0	99
Billy Bentley	23	2	99
Zoran Vidinovski	23	2	92
Joel Scalzi	24	0	92
Daniela Da Silva Pola	24	31	85
Michelle Olsen	33	50	78
Jamie McDonald	29	0	71
Thomas Haynes	27	0	64
Andrew Temment	28	0	64
Laura Clare	20	31	57
Rebecca Dent	23	0	50
Emma Cornell	24	0	50
Susannah Murray	30	2	43
Nick Sady	25	18	36
Hayley Zalewski	24	0	31
Demet Sahan	25	11	29
Bodie Czeladka	24	0	22
Theresa-Jane "TJ" Whitlock	22	0	22
Kate Gladman	25	0	15

;Notes

Weekly summary and highlights

The main events in the Big Brother 7 house are summarised in the table below. Evictions, tasks, and other events for a particular week are noted. Events in the house are listed in order of sequence.

Friday Night Live

Italic and bold denotes prize won.

In the 13th Friday Night Games, as the winner, Travis was allowed to bring two guests into the Rewards Room.
Andrew has won more Friday Night Games than any other housemate, in any season that "FNL" has aired in on Big Brother.
As an extra on the final Friday Night Games, Zach won the chance to spend a few minutes with his best friend Zac, Zack, or Zachary who Big Brother used in the last mini-task, instead of the usual prizes.

Nominations table

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Special episodes

A number of special episodes aired during the original run of the season. These included:

Game On

"Game On" was a live show that was broadcast on Day 2. The results of the overnight wild-card SMS vote were revealed. Susannah and Zoran were the chosen two out of the six wild-card housemates. The remainder of the wild-card housemates were isolated in the White Room. The Daily Show was incorporated into the first part of the live show. Hosted by Gretel Killeen.

Full House

"Full House" was a live show that was broadcast on Day 8. It was aired in the timeslot usually occupied by Eviction shows. Firstly, the secure relationship between Andrew and Hayley was revealed to the house, as was Billy's role to impede Hayley's task of keeping that relationship secret from the other housemates. Hayley and Andrew were deemed by Big Brother to have successfully kept their relationship a secret from the housemates for the week which meant they could both stay in the house. Big Brother also revealed that for succeeding in their task they had earned $50,000 to be added to the prize money, which was previously set at zero.
Big Brother also tempted the wildcard housemates to leave the White Room by offering a sum of money to them, which Cruz accepted. Hosted by Gretel Killeen.

Wild Card Entry

"Wild Card Entry" was a live show broadcast on Day 11. The White Room housemates had left the room and, dependent on the following events, one of them would enter the Big Brother house as a housemate.

The first evictee was determined by the White Room housemates had to vote off one of their own; Kara was eliminated with two votes.
In the second round, the Final 2 competed in a Heights Challenge - having had to collect three major items of clothing and dress a model while airborne on a large steel frame. This was witnessed by the Big Brother Housemates, who cast their votes for either Harrison or Demet to enter the house. Demet won with 8 votes against 6.

Hosted by Gretel Killeen.

Golden Key

"Golden Key" was a live show broadcast on Day 18. This special was to select the winner of the Starburst Golden Key. The show's producers had selected five finalists from the original 100 Golden Key winners after an intensive audition process. The chosen finalists were Carolyn, Nick, Natalie, Angie and Laura. To select which would become a housemate contestants chose one of five numbered discs randomly from a bag. Then they were allocated a clear box of confectionery depending on which disc they had selected. One box also contained a golden key, and the contestant whose box contained the key, Nick, was designated the new housemate. He entered the house during the show, while the housemates were performing a Pantomime as part of a weekly task. Hosted by Gretel Killeen.

Intruder Alert! / Intruder Eviction

"Intruder Alert!" was a live 90-minute special that aired on Day 31. Hayley was evicted from the house during the episode. Later new housemates Daniela and Laura entered as intruders. Hosted by Gretel Killeen.

The Works

"The Works" was a scheduled Big Brother special focusing on behind the scenes footage that was planned to air on Day 46. The show would have been recorded on the same day at Network Ten's Pyrmont studios. The show was later cancelled for unapparent reasons.

Live Eviction 6 / Intruders Incoming

The 6th Live Eviction show was a 90-minute eviction and intruder special that aired on Day 50. It featured a double eviction and introduced the two new intruders, Michelle and Zach. Michelle entered and met the remaining housemates. Zach remained in the Rewards Room, awaiting entry during UpLate later that evening. Hosted by Gretel Killeen and Mike Goldman.

Kyle in the House

"Kyle in the House" was a special version of the daily show that aired for 60 minutes before Live Eviction 11 on Day 85. It featured a recap on Kyle Sandilands' entry to the house and during the show Big Brother set Sandilands a special task to "challenge the housemates".

Gretel Goes In

The final nomination show on Day 93 was a special where the housemates did not need to nominate and instead Killeen went into the Rewards Room to interview the housemates individually and ask questions supplied by the viewers. Hosted by Gretel Killeen.

Final Sunday Double Eviction

Final Sunday Double Eviction was the last Eviction of Big Brother 2007, and was broadcast live in front of an audience on Day 99 from Dreamworld, and was hosted by Gretel Killeen.

Finale

The season finale aired on Day 100 in which all the previous houseguests returned to reflect on the season, and included a special Pantomime in which the past houseguests recreated some of the season's best moments. In addition, the final two housemates were reunited with loved ones, before leaving the house together.
For the finale, the stage was modified with two large screens covering the sides of the eviction stage.
It was the closest final in Australian Big Brother history of less than 500 votes and the announcement of the winner was delayed by an hour after the voting lines closed as votes were rechecked. At one point during the final episode, there was just 64 votes difference between the last two housemates. At the end of the show, Aleisha was announced the winner and Zach the runner-up. Aleisha is the second female to win Big Brother Australia.

Reception

The 2007 launch had the smallest ever opening episode audience in all seven Australian Big Brother series, and a 14% drop from the previous year's opening night. Network Ten came second overall but lost the night to Nine Network's 60 Minutes. Nevertheless, with an average of 1.549 million viewers, the opening night was Ten's best Sunday night of the year, to date. The series finale was expected to have just under two million viewers, a 10% drop from 2006's finale. Network Ten later announced that the peak audience for the finale was 2.3 million viewers. Crikey's media reporter Glenn Dyer stated that Ten's reported figures were exaggerated, and that the average number of viewers was 1.791 million for the entire show, not 1.9 as Ten had stated, which only accounted for 8.30pm – 10pm. He also said that while the peak of 2.3 million viewers beat the 2006 finale, the average audience was fewer than the 2006 finale's average 1.88 million viewers.
In June, the series ratings were down 5% overall and 13% in the 16- to 39-year-old demographic compared to the previous year's series.
By the series' final week in July these figures had dropped a further 5% and 2% respectively. The Daily Show and Live Eviction Show were down 100,000 and 200,000 viewers respectively. Overall the season attracted around one million viewers each night.
The show received several bad reviews. The Sunday Telegraph stated that "nothing could get worse for the ratings-challenged BB". The Daily Telegraph named the series "Most. Boring. Ever." The Sunday Herald Sun said that the show "has committed the worst television sin – it is boring." eBroadcast Australia considered the program "left lifeless and fading" after the finale. Christian Today thought the entire season "a slump in rating". One review in The Age praised the series, pointing out the highlights of the season and claiming " is as enjoyable as watching a quality sitcom or drama". Another Age journalist disagreed, commenting that the 2007 series "just didn't sparkle".
In comments reported in a newspaper article, evicted housemate Emma reflected on the program's reduced ratings and noted that whilst inside the house the housemates joked about whether the show had been cancelled.

Ratings

Ratings are rounded to the nearest ten thousand. Uplate shows are not included in official averages. Figures in bold include consolidated viewing figures.

Controversies

The Daily Telegraph had reported on 21 April 2007 – the day before the show's launch – that an internet hacker claimed to have obtained the names of the 18 housemates from the official Three Mobile website: "Aleisha, Andrew, Brodie, Cruz, Demet, Emma, Harrison, Hayley, Jamie, Joel, Kara, Kate, Rebecca, Sussannah, Thomas, TJ, Travis, and Zoran". A Three Mobile spokeswoman denied the claims and told the media that the names were not "hacked" or "leaked" from the Three Mobile site, refusing to confirm whether the housemates names' and photos were real.

Because of the pre-recorded nature of launch shows, members of different forums and websites decided to have live streams using mobile phones allowing people to listen to the show before it was broadcast on national television. Because of this, recording of the show stopped until the streaming was stopped. Eventually, production staff offered prizes if audience members would pick out people from the crowd using phones to broadcast the show.The Daily Telegraph had reported that Big Brother producers had failed to censor offensive language when housemate Bodie told other housemates he was a "dense cunt" during the PG-rated Daily Show on Tuesday 24 April 2007.
The Sunday Mail on 29 April 2007 had reported that the parents of Mormon housemate Rebecca, were upset that their daughter was under siege from fellow housemates over her decision not to join in their party antics.The Daily Telegraph had reported on 4 May 2007 that housemate Kate's situation regarding her pregnancy and pre-eclampsia was known by Network Ten and producer Endemol Southern Star before her entry to the house. This subsequently led to her breakdown regarding the "Newborn Group Task".The Courier-Mail, The Daily Telegraph and The Age had reported that backpackers, students and other young people were being paid as little as $50 a day cash-in-hand for stunt work for the Friday Night Live Games episodes of Big Brother. It is claimed that they were used to test the various stunts that the housemates would have to perform. The Office of Workplace Services and other government departments were investigating the claims to see if the producers Endemol Southern Star were in breach of any laws or regulations.
Week 8 of Friday Night Live had a "Mexican" theme where housemates had to throw liquid-filled balloons at a Mexican Flag, with the intention of drenching the fabric. This use of the Mexican flag provoked criticism from Mexican officials. In a letter to the Australian Communications and Media Authority and production company Endemol Southern Star, Mexico's Foreign Ministry complained about the offensive use of the country's flag. " demand they take adequate measures to avoid this type of incident in the future", the ministry said. The show's producers later issued an apology.The Daily Telegraph reported on 3 July that host Gretel Killeen was aggressive towards some housemates, in particular Jamie during his eviction interview after he suggested the video package shown of him crying and sitting alone was biased towards the negative. Later she was criticised for being particularly passive aggressive towards other male housemates like Thomas and Nick. Killeen was also criticised for hypocrisy having aggressively questioned why Jamie did not intervene when Michelle argued with Aleisha, and yet she was receptive towards Michelle herself on her eviction, and even rationalised Michelle's behaviour during the argument. Michelle was also named the most unpopular housemate ever to inhabit the Australian Big Brother House.
Former housemate Susannah had left her partner and started dating fellow housemate Thomas after leaving the BB house. It was reported that her ex, Anthony Murphy, had blamed the reality TV show for the demise of their relationship.