Big Brother 9

Format

The format remains largely unchanged from previous seasons. HouseGuests are sequestered in the Big Brother House with no contact to or from the outside world. Each week, the HouseGuests take part in several compulsory challenges that determine who will win food, luxuries, and power in the House. The winner of the weekly Head of Household competition is immune from nominations and must nominate two fellow HouseGuests for eviction. After a HouseGuest becomes Head of Household, he or she is ineligible to take part in the next Head of Household competition. HouseGuests also take part in competitions to earn food for the week. The losing team will be forced to eat Big Brother Slop for the week. This is the third season to feature Slop as the punishment food, as it was originally peanut butter and jelly. The winner of the Power of Veto competition wins the right to save one of the nominated HouseGuests from eviction. If the Veto winner exercises the power, the Head of Household must then nominate another HouseGuest for eviction.

On eviction night, all HouseGuests except for the Head of Household and the two nominees vote to evict one of the two nominees. This compulsory vote is conducted in the privacy of the Diary Room by the host Julie Chen. In the event of a tie, the Head of Household must cast the deciding vote, announcing it in front of the other HouseGuests. Unlike other versions of Big Brother, the HouseGuests may discuss the nomination and eviction process openly and freely. The nominee with the greater number of votes will be evicted from the House on the live Thursday broadcast, exiting to an adjacent studio to be interviewed by Chen. HouseGuests may voluntarily leave the House at any time and those who break the rules may be expelled from the house by Big Brother. The final seven HouseGuests evicted during the season will vote for the winner on the season finale. These "Jury Members" will be sequestered in a separate house and will not be allowed to watch the show except for competitions and ceremonies that include all of the remaining HouseGuests. The jury members will not be shown any Diary Room interviews or any footage that include strategy or details regarding nominations.

This season featured numerous twists to the format. The main twist this season saw the HouseGuests competing as couples; they competed as couples, were nominated as couples, and were evicted as couples. This twist went on until the third week, when the couples were told they could officially play as individuals. Another twist this season saw a previously evicted HouseGuest returning to the game on Day 35, with the returning HouseGuest decided partly by the HouseGuests themselves. This season also introduced the Power Couple twist, in which the winners of this title were required to evict one couple from the house in a matter of a few days.

HouseGuests

The cast was revealed on February 6, 2008. In the cast of 16, two prior relationships were included as a cast twists. Firstly, Sharon Obermueller and Jacob Heald previously dated before the season, and were forced to pair together in the couple twist. Secondly, Ryan Quicksall and Jen DiTurno secretly date when they enter the house; however, they aren't partnered in the couples twist.

Future appearance

Matt McDonald participated in a food competition in the following season, which featured a representative from each previous season. Matt McDonald also participated in Season 6, episode 16 of Fear Factor. Parker Somerville and Alex Coladonato attended the premiere of Big Brother 20.

Summary

On Day 1, the original sixteen HouseGuests entered the house. HouseGuests Jen and Ryan, a couple outside of the house, were aware of each other's presence while ex-couple Jacob and Sharon were surprised to find one another in the house. Following their entrance, the HouseGuests learned of the season's twist, in which they would be partnered with their "soulmate" and compete as a couple. The HouseGuests then learned the identity of their soulmates; Adam & Sheila were paired together, while Alex & Amanda, Allison & Ryan, Chelsia & James, Jacob & Sharon, Jen & Parker, Joshuah & Neil, and Matt & Natalie were paired together. HouseGuests Adam & Sheila immediately began to clash, annoying their fellow HouseGuests. The couples then learned of the Power Couple twist, in which the winner of this title would choose to evict one of the couples from the house in a matter of days. HouseGuests then competed in the "Falling For You" Power Couple competition. For this competition, one person from each couple was hooked onto a zipline, while their partner had to hold onto them while being suspended in the air. The last couple remaining suspended without falling would be the winning team. Midway through the competition, it was revealed that if a couple managed to get a pillow laying below them and went on to win the competition, they would earn a $10,000 prize. Ultimately, Jen & Parker won the Power Couple competition, as well as the $10,000 prize. On Day 2, in an attempt to cause drama, Jacob began telling some of the HouseGuests that Parker was a "snake" not to trust him. When Jen found out, she informed Parker of this, leading to a confrontation during which Jacob claimed he had been told this by another HouseGuest. Sharon, in an attempt to save herself and her partner, implied to Parker that Ryan had made the statement. Fearing that Parker would vote to evict Ryan, Jen informed Parker that she and Ryan were a couple outside of the house; Ryan then told Allison, as he felt it was unfair for her not to know. On Day 3, Jen & Parker cast the sole vote to evict Jacob & Sharon from the house.

Following Jacob & Sharon's eviction, HouseGuests competed in the "Do You Know Your Partner?" Head of Household competition. For this competition, Big Brother 8 HouseGuests Eric Stein and Jessica Hughbanks returned to host. The HouseGuests were required to answer questions about their partners preferences in a relationship; the team with the most points at the end of the competition would be the winner. Alex & Amanda were the winners, becoming the first couple to win Head of Household. Fearing Allison was going to tell the house about Jen and Ryan's relationship, Jen & Parker decided to tell the other HouseGuests about their relationship. Though believing the others would appreciate their honesty, the HouseGuests were upset by their relationship. Following this, Alex & Amanda and Matt & Natalie formed an alliance, vowing to be the last remaining couples. Allison and Sheila, believing Allison would be evicted that week, lied to Joshuah and Chelsia stating that they were a lesbian couple, and had known each other before entering the house. On Day 7, Alex & Amanda chose to nominate Allison & Ryan and Jen & Parker for eviction. Later that day, Neil chose to walk from the game due to an unspecified urgent personal matter; Joshuah was given the option to bring either Jacob or Sharon back as his partner, and he chose Sharon. When picking the fourth couple to compete for the Power of Veto competition, Matt & Natalie were selected to compete; Joshuah was selected to host. On Day 9, HouseGuests competed in the "In Sickness and in Health" Power of Veto competition. For this competition, one member of each couple was strapped to a spinning heart while holding onto a button. Their partner was required to spin the heart, and the first couple to reach 300 spins without letting go of their button would be the winning couple. Matt & Natalie were the winners of the Power of Veto. On Day 11, Matt & Natalie chose not to use the Power of Veto on either nominated couple. On Day 14, Jen & Parker became the second couple to be evicted from the house in a vote of three to one.

Voting history

Color key:

Notes

Production

Development

Following the 2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike, the trade magazine Variety reported that CBS, in response to the then-ongoing Writers Guild of America strike, was considering airing a winter edition of Big Brother, and that the network started cast auditions. Several sites speculated that the winter edition could have been an American version of Celebrity Big Brother but this was untrue as CBS released a statement that the next edition of Big Brother would be a regular season following the format of past editions. The season was announced on November 15, 2007 with open casting calls being held from November 17, 2007 to December 8, 2007. The finalists for the season were chosen on December 27, 2007.

House

House pictures were released on February 6, 2008. The house has an outdoors theme due to this being the first season to air during the winter season. The house also includes a theme of love, in alignment with the season's twist.

Throughout the house, there are numerous love quotes written by Oscar Wilde, William Shakespeare, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. In the dining room and kitchen, the furniture are in bright red and yellow colors, and logs stacked against each other fill up a wall. The walkway to the Head of Household room evokes a giant library. The Head of Household room is an exotic island oasis. The headboard is made from a surfboard, there are Hula girl table lamps, rattan carpet and Polynesian knickknacks. The boat bedroom features shelves and chests designed to resemble small rowboats with rowboat shaped beds. Two large beds made of actual unfinished tree branches with pink bedspreads fill another room. The living room features a giant green semi-circular sofa, and a stone wall fireplace. A red colored room connected directly to the living room by a short hallway, with no doors, has a pair of pullout couches rather than actual beds. New this season is a Spa room complete with a massage table, two-person sauna and lounge. The spa room would be featured in numerous subsequent seasons. Outside, there is a hot tub and pool, a billiards table and lounge area. The lounge area features a fire pit and heated lamps. Along with work-out equipment, there are lawn chairs to lay out in the sun. The outside also includes the washing machine and clothes dryer, both of which are covered overhead.

Prizes

The HouseGuests compete for a grand prize of $500,000 and a runner-up prize of $50,000.

In addition to the grand prize and the runner-up prize, various smaller prizes were offered throughout the game, a majority during Power of Veto competitions or Luxury competitions. In week one, during the Power Couple competition "Falling for You"; Jen & Parker won $10,000. During the Power of Veto competition "Color of Veto" on Day 30; Adam won a motorcycle and Ryan won $10,000. On Day 43 during a Luxury competition, Chelsia, Joshuah, Sharon and Sheila won an advanced screening of the Columbia Pictures film 21. On Day 45, Chelsia won a $21,000 VIP trip to Las Vegas before the screening of the film 21, in which her popcorn bucket had a golden ticket for the prize. On Day 44, when Big Brother 8 contestant "Evel Dick" Donato returned to the Big Brother House to host the Power of Veto competition "Club Evel", if a player scored more than Dick's score of 33 from last season, he or she would have also won a classic Gibson Les Paul guitar and amplifier. Since no one beat his score, Dick won the guitar for himself. During the second Luxury competition of the season on Day 71, Ryan and Sharon won an in-house screening of the 20th Century Fox film What Happens in Vegas, a VIP experience that includes a shopping spree and tickets to the May 1 premiere of the film in Hollywood, and a chance to meet the cast at an after party.

The America's fan vote of America's Favorite Juror first seen in the All-stars season returned after a one-season hiatus, where the Jury of Seven compete in a public vote for a $25,000 prize to be awarded in the finale, which James won.

Broadcast

On December 3, 2007, CBS announced Big Brother would return on February 12, 2008 with three episodes airing on Sundays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. This was a change from the previous season, which had aired on Thursdays instead of Wednesdays. The Wednesday episode, which aired at 8 pm Eastern Time, featured the live eviction and subsequent Head of Household competition taking place. During the live eviction, the show was hosted by Julie Chen. The Sunday episode, which aired at 8 pm Eastern Time, featured the food competition and nomination ceremony, as well as some highlights from the previous days. The Tuesday episode, which aired at 9 pm Eastern Time featured the Power of Veto competition and the Power of Veto ceremony, along with more highlights of recent events in the game. Some changes to the scheduling format were made. The first eviction, for example, occurred on the second episode of the season.

Both Showtime and CBS announced on January 8, 2008 that Big Brother: After Dark would also return and air seven nights a week during the hours of 12 am and end at 3 am ET. The show served as a live feed into the house, and was edited only for slanderous statements and music copyrights. On February 11, 2008 CBS announced that the live Internet feeds would return for the season with certain events in the House being blocked out to preserve drama of the television broadcasts. The Internet talk show House Calls: The Big Brother Talk Show would also return with host Gretchen Massey. A new feature for Big Brother 9 was the addition of watching the live Internet feeds and new episode of Big Brother live on MediaFLO enabled cell phones. Big Brother 9 was broadcast on television in the United Kingdom, airing on E4 with two one-hour episodes on Thursday nights and one one-hour episode on Tuesday nights, the first episode was shown on February 14 with the finale shown on April 29, 2008.

Reception

Ratings

Big Brother 9 airs three episodes a week, with shows airing Sundays at 8 p.m. (EST), Tuesdays 9 p.m., and Wednesdays 8 p.m. The live eviction show was moved to Wednesdays due to Survivor: Micronesia airing Thursdays 8 p.m. This is the first season of Big Brother to air during an official television season, and the second to air concurrently with a season of Survivor. Big Brother 9 is also competing with Fox's American Idol on Wednesdays. The first episode of Big Brother 9 premiered on February 12, 2008 with 7.33 million viewers (4.6/7 viewing audience), down from last summer's 4.8/9 (7.4 million viewers) launch.

U.S. viewing figures

This is ratings information for the season. "Rating" is the estimated percentage of all televisions tuned to the show, and "share" is the percentage of all televisions in use that are tuned in. "Overnight Viewers" is the estimated number viewers that watched a program either while it was broadcast or watched via DVR on the same day the program was broadcast. "Live+7 Viewers" is the estimated number of viewers that watched a program while it was broadcast or via DVR within 7 days of original broadcast.. "Increase over Live" is the percentage of increase between the number of viewers who watched a program "Live" versus "Live+7".

Unless otherwise cited, the overnight rating and share information comes from Zap2It and viewer and ranking information comes from CalendarLive. The following week, the numbers are updated with the final Nielsen numbers from TVWeek.com. DVR information is from TV by the Numbers.

Based on average total viewers per episode of Big Brother 9 on CBS:

Season performance is through 4/20/08.

"n/a" = No information available.

Delays because of CBS Sports:

NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament airing changes:

March 19 eviction episode aired at 9:00 pm (Survivor: Micronesia aired at 8:00 pm).

March 23 and 30 nomination episodes were delayed from its normal start time.

The Masters

April 13 nomination episode was delayed from its normal start time.

UK television ratings

This is ratings information for the season that broadcasts in the United Kingdom on E4. Ratings below are overnight figures from Channel4Sales

Critical response

Autism United, a national autism group, demanded an apology from CBS over controversial remarks made by HouseGuest Adam Jasinski. During the second episode, Adam stated he worked for an autism foundation and would spend his winnings on a hair salon for people with developmental disabilities "so retards can get together and get their hair done". When Sheila confronted him over his highly offensive remarks, Adam responded by saying "[he] can call them whatever [he] want because [he] work[s] with them all day". John Gilmore (the executive director of Autism United) demanded action to be taken in a letter to Sumner Redstone, Chairman of CBS Corporation, after the Wednesday episode. Gilmore called for the show to be canceled and claimed that the network chose to air the segment for their own personal goals. The organization also contacted several of their advertisers over the issue, including Lowe's, Campbell's Soup, Claritin, Geico, McDonald's and Taco Bell. Autism United are also calling for an investigation into Adam and the foundation he works for. The organization, United Autism Foundation, claims to be a 501 c3 charity (deductions made to the organization would be considered tax deductible under current IRS regulations). The website for United Autism Foundation issued an apology regarding Adam's behavior in the house and stated he will no longer be working for the company after it ends. After winning the show on April 27, 2008, Adam declared he would donate $100,000 to Autism United.

On Day 31, Matt used a racial slur when referring to another (white) HouseGuest. The incident in question was aired on both the live Internet feeds and the spin-off show Big Brother: After Dark on Showtime 2.

On Day 70, there was a controversial Head of Household competition where the HouseGuests were to determine if certain statements were "fact" or "fiction." Many fans of the show, including House Calls co-host Dick Donato, were displeased with the final "fact or fiction" statement, which dealt with how many preexisting relationships there were in the house. The correct answer was three, which counted two relationships between HouseGuests (Jacob & Sharon and Jen & Ryan) and also the relationships between the guinea pigs. Some fans considered this question unfair. Sharon missed the question, leading to her losing the HoH competition and ultimately being evicted.

On October 19, 2009, Adam was arrested, and charged by the DEA in North Reading, MA for possession of 2,000 oxycodone pills with intent to distribute. Jasinski allegedly admitted funding his illegal venture with his $500,000 winnings from the show. He faces a maximum of 20 years in prison and a $1 million fine. Big Brother finalist Sheila Kennedy, who was part of the jury and voted for Adam to win the $500,000 grand prize, stated she felt betrayed by him for using his prize money to fund a drug ring, due to his promise to donate part of it to the autism foundation. HouseGuest Allison said, "I hope Adam gets the maximum [jail] time he deserves because this is terrible."