EVERYBODY'S WATCHING.

Launched in 2000, Big Brother is one of the UK's longest-running reality TV shows. The show’s concept is based around what happens if you put up to twenty strangers in a house for sixteen weeks and don’t let them leave! We record these interactions 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with the day’s recording edited and turned around for transmission the following night.

NEP Group’s work on Big Brother can be broken down into four areas, which all integrate seamlessly with each other:

LIVE & POST PRODUCTION

• Crewing involves scheduling more than 220 shifts per week; many of our team members are very dedicated and have worked on the show for years.
• Eight streams are recorded 24 hours a day; streams are sent directly to the edit and cut by two directors who are led by day producers and story producers.
• We use a closed RF distribution system across the entire site, which sends stream outputs to televisions located in most offices so all production crew can keep across output. Equipment consists of 60 mini cams and five line cameras, with the infrastructure to add a further two for tasks as needed; 20 radio mics and 65 line mics, along with a PA system that can be zoned to different areas; and two 128 channel audio desks for streams mixing.

THE EVICTION SHOW

• This is an LE show transmitted live every Friday, and sometimes other days throughout the week depending on what the channel requires. At 9pm the least popular housemate is removed from the house. The show is directed from its own production gallery and is presenter-driven comprising of interviews, VT and live tasks which tie in with the reality technical facilities.
• Eight line cameras, six line mics, eight radio mics, EVS and a PA system is used for the audience, along with the usual production gallery infrastructure and system interconnectivity.

BIT ON THE SIDE

This companion to Big Brother is a presenter-driven magazine show on five nights a week at 11pm. The show takes a light-hearted look at what has been happening in the house with audience participation. It has its own studio with production gallery, sound, VT and Vision areas and uses four line cameras, six line mics, six radio mics, EVS and PA system, all of which although 500m away comes back to our MCR on the main site where the shows is recorded at around 7pm and transmitted to air from our playout area.

TRANSMISSION AND COMPLIANCE

Our transmission area is a busy place used to output shows to air and for ingest by C5, 5*, MTV and TV3. The area is also used to delay shows as required; we have a separate, duplicate area for play-out and compliance review where ‘live’ shows can be delayed by up to 14 minutes in order to remove non-watershed material.