Big Brother gets sibling in India

Big Boss, the Indian version of Endemol’s Big Brother format, has received a regional-language commission in India.

Viacom 18 channel ETV Kannada will air India’s second version of Big Boss, produced by Endemol India, towards the end of next month in Southern India.

Endemol said another regional-language commission is in the pipeline and is expected to air in the summer. Meanwhile, the upcoming seventh season of Big Boss, produced in Hindi for Viacom 18 network Colors, is due to launch in autumn 2013.

The long-running format will therefore air in a total of three languages in India by the end of 2013. All three versions of the format will have 14-week runs of 98 episodes, including special two-hour launch and finale shows. The channels it airs on, ETV Kannada and Colors, are part of Viacom’s 50-50 joint venture with Indian media firm Network18 Group in India.

Endemol India is set to locally adapt Big Boss into a feature film and also plans to roll out versions of its formats in different languages in India, as it has done with Big Boss.

Deepak Dhar, CEO of Endemol India, said: “Given the diverse cultures and dialects in India, there is a large base of untapped audiences across the country for Big Boss. The local and global success of this format speaks for itself and we have been keen to replicate that in different languages here, whilst adapting the drama and jeopardy of the show to regional tastes.”