Monday 24 February 2003
By eBroadcast Staff and agencies.

LOS ANGELES - Twelve more people will lock themselves inside a house for the viewing pleasure of Americans this summer on a fourth edition of CBS America's Big Brother.

The US network has formally ordered the 4th edition of the reality series, according to news reports. The game, hardly different to the Aussie version, places a dozen people in a house on a CBS lot in the San Fernando Valley, where they're cut off from the outside world and given often-goofy tasks to do. However, the American BB does not have public voting - the housemates vote one another out, and the last person left wins US$500,000.

The show has been a reliable ratings winner over the past three summers for CBS (though not on the scale of the ratings in other countries). "Big Brother 3" regularly drew more than 10 million viewers, usually good enough to win its timeslot.