Big Brother (Israeli TV Series)

The Israeli edition adapts the international format around an enclosed, continuously filmed house in which contestants face public voting.[7] Keshet launched the local version on Channel 2 in 2008, and the program later moved to Reshet as Israel’s commercial television system was reorganized.[8][4] Seasons have varied in length, cast composition, broadcast platforms, and production staffing, but continuous observation and audience participation have remained central.

The Israeli adaptation was announced in May 2008 as a forthcoming Channel 2 program produced by Keshet. It was described as the first version of the format to be broadcast by an Israeli broadcaster, after many versions had already been produced abroad.[8] Shayna Weiss dates the Israeli series from 2008 and places it among local programs made possible by rising living standards and the privatization of communications.[1]

The first season helped establish the program’s audience. Near its finale, it had an average rating of 30.8% for the season to that point, excluding the finale, and generated substantial advertising and SMS-voting income. The reported audience was 59.5% women and 40.5% men, with viewers aged 25–44 overrepresented relative to their share of the population.[2] The finale averaged 39.1% among Jewish households and drew 1.217 million individual viewers, with a peak rating of 42.8% among Jewish households; the contemporary report called it a record for a reality-program finale at the time.[9]

Shifra Kornfeld won the first season after 107 days, receiving a one-million-shekel prize. Ynet reported that she received 1,007,221 votes, ahead of Yossi Bublil’s 704,942, and that more than two million SMS messages were sent for the finale.[10] A different contemporary account reported a $250,000 prize and identified Yossi Boublil as runner-up; the reports thus describe the prize in different terms.[11]

Ahead of the second season, a report said that 3.3 million Israelis had been exposed to the first and called it the country’s most-watched program during its run. The house was rebuilt with about 1,250 square meters of built area, a garden, and a swimming pool. Coverage was also planned as an unedited, around-the-clock stream on Keshet’s website and mobile portal and on cable and satellite channel 20.[12] In 2011, a report described the third season as following 21 housemates for three months, with 50 hidden cameras, weekly evictions, and a final group of five competing for one winner; a dedicated channel and online service carried the program around the clock.[13]

The show changed broadcasters during the 2017 division of Channel 2. Before the split, reports anticipated that Big Brother would leave Keshet for Reshet and that its existing hosts, house, theme music, and longtime editor and voice Yoram Zak would not transfer with it.[4] The transfer took place as Channel 2 was divided into separate Keshet and Reshet services.[4]

The first Reshet season launched in May 2018 with Ravit Lior-Mandel as editor and the voice addressing contestants, making her the first woman in that role.[14] A later interview reported that the season’s opening episodes rated 29% and 26.2%, while the average stood at 18% at the time of the interview. Lior-Mandel said she had asked for a permanent senior editing partner before leaving, describing the workload as physically and personally exhausting; these were her account of the circumstances, not an independent finding about her departure.[14]

In 2022, Ynetnews described the upcoming season as the show’s fifteenth Israeli edition and the sixth produced solely by Reshet after the Channel 2 split. Production said participants would have to show proof of COVID vaccination and that the cast would consist only of anonymous contestants, unlike several preceding seasons that had included celebrities or a mix of known and unknown people.[15] The archive on Mako’s Keshet programs page, labeled Season 8, organizes coverage by contestants’ days in the house; its listings include a day-50 milestone and a final-day entry marked day 101.[16]

The central premise places a group of people in a house they cannot leave, where cameras film them continuously.[7] In the first season, contestants lived together in seclusion in a house wired with continuously running cameras. One contestant was voted off each week, and viewers used text-message votes to choose the winner at the end.[11] A 2012 account described a season with 16 contestants isolated from the outside world and under video surveillance 24 hours a day for two months, with viewers voting contestants out and a million-shekel prize for the winner.[17]

During the first season, producer Elad Kuperman described production as a roughly 100-day, round-the-clock undertaking. He said the house was built in three months near the Channel 2 News building, and that production employed about 150 people, using 40 cameras and 50 microphones. Contestants could not leave the enclosed compound.[7]

Kuperman called the program “real reality,” distinguishing its daily editing process from reality shows assembled after months of filming. He said footage from one day was edited into a 25-minute segment for the next day, while filming continued around the clock. In his account, editors selected material and producers documented events rather than creating or directing the housemates’ drama; the format also aired continuously on television and online, with viewers judging contestants weekly.[7] These statements describe the producer’s account of the production approach.

Kuperman said thousands applied for the first season and that casting involved many screening stages. The production sought a varied cast with multiple personal “layers,” rather than filling predetermined demographic slots. Applicants did not need a performance skill such as singing or dancing: viewers would judge personalities and behavior in different situations.[7]

The first season brought discussions of ethnic identity, sexuality, religion, and Shabbat into Channel 2 prime time. Kuperman said the program had become “a kind of mirror of Israeli society,” though he also said the production had not set out to create that effect. Examples he cited included discussion of Sephardi-Ashkenazi relations and a conversation between a religious contestant and a gay contestant.[3]

The show’s popularity reached beyond television audiences. One account described it as popular enough that a Tel Aviv school canceled a field trip so students could watch the finale.[1] Tamar Hermann’s 2012 article on Israeli public opinion and decision-making contrasted the show airing on Channel 2 with a Channel 10 documentary about the campaign to free Gilad Shalit. The newspaper passage cited by Hermann asked whether the documentary represented “a bigger, more important tribal bonfire” than the Big Brother broadcast metaphorically associated with Erez Tal.[18]

The program also attracted commentary about how contestants behaved under surveillance. A 2011 Ynet article argued that housemates had become more aware of the cameras and of television’s power to turn them into public characters.[13] That interpretation accompanied the article’s account of the season’s cameras, evictions, and continuous broadcasts, rather than constituting a production fact.

Coverage of the first season framed some contestant conflicts through Sephardi-Ashkenazi identity and class. A report focused on Moroccan-background father and daughter Yossi and Einav Boublil and their rivals, including winner Shifra Kornfeld, whom it characterized as representing an Ashkenazi, secular, liberal elite. Another account described contestants forming opposing Sephardic and Ashkenazic camps and trying to have members of the other group evicted.[11][1] These reports convey interpretations of particular contestants and conflicts, not an uncontested or comprehensive account of Israeli social divisions.

In 2012, former contestant Sa’ar Scheinfein alleged that the show’s physician gave contestants psychiatric pills that affected their behavior and said he intended to sue the production company and physician for NIS 2.5 million. The report said five other former contestants made related allegations. Keshet and the physician called the claims unfounded, said contestants received medical care—including psychiatric help when necessary—and the physician said the allegations were made for financial gain. The report records allegations and denials, not a finding that the claims were established.[17]

The show’s production also had to respond to events beyond the house. During Operation Protective Edge in 2014, contestants heard air-raid sirens; after the first, production told them it had resulted from a technical fault, and they were informed about the military operation after a second siren. Live evictions for the rest of that season aired without a live studio audience because of the war. In March 2020, contestants were informed about the escalating COVID-19 situation.[5]

In August 2022, when the house was in Neve Ilan outside Jerusalem, rocket sirens sounded during Operation Breaking Dawn. Contestants were directed to a reinforced room, and Reshet later informed them about the situation. Producers cut the live feed during the siren, so viewers did not see the contestants taking shelter.[5] A 2024 season-premiere review noted that host Guy Zu-Aretz referred to the war and the difficulty of returning to routine, and that yellow hostage ribbons appeared on hosts’ and contestants’ suits. The reviewer interpreted the return of the program as a sign that Israeli society had resumed elements of routine while the war continued, while also noting protests against the premiere; this was the writer’s interpretation of the broadcast and its context.[6]