The Season 10 of the Africa’s biggest reality TV show, Big Brother Africa (BBA), may not hold this year due to lack of sponsorship.
The organisers of the show, Africa Magic and Endemol were unable to get sponsorship for this year’s edition of the show.
The Manager of Multichoice Ghana, Anne Sackey confirmed to Peganews that they at Multichoice Ghana have received notice from MNET that this year’s edition of Big Brother Africa will not hold.
She explained that MNET did not give them any reasons as to why they will not be doing the Big Brother this year, but then, she personally thinks it’s due to sponsorship constraints.
For the last previous years, the show has been aired near the end of the year and now they will have to just push it to the year 2016.
In 2013, the show started around June, and in 2014 the show was postponed to November due to the devastating fire that torched the Big Brother house down. With the continual production of the new Big Brother Mzansi (South Africa) and Big Brother Angola, word has it that less priority may be given to the continental show, Big Brother Africa.
However, the lead producer of the show has said that their main focus is delivering quality content to viewers all over the world.
“We focus on creating a show that will be popular all around sub-Saharan Africa and other regions. We would care less on the date in which the show will be aired, whether it will be early 2016 or late 2016. All we have to focus on is producing a season that everyone will live to remember.
“We would therefore estimate the start date of Season 10 of Big Brother Africa to be between January and February 2016. For now, we will just have to wait,” he said.
Big Brother Africa and Big Brother Mzansi, both produced for M-Net channels in South Africa by Endemol Shine Africa remain mired in controversy.
In last year during South Africa’s Big Brother Mzansi season on the Mzansi Magic and Big Brother channels, a male contestant was removed after hitting a woman in the show, which M-Net called “an isolated incident.”
In April this year, the latest Big Brother Mzansi season exploded in controversy over alleged rape when a male contestant bragged how he “dipped her” when he allegedly had sex with a drunk and passed out female contestant who was horrified about what she was told happened.
Endemol Shine Africa removed both from the reality show competition after the alleged sexual misconduct which led to criticism and calls for M-Net and MultiChoice to end the misogynistic and voyeuristic reality show “which keeps encouraging and rewarding” violence and sexual misconduct against women.
M-Net and the production company decided to monitor alcohol consumption more closely in the booze fest series shown across multiple channels on MultiChoice’s DStv platform.
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