An Open Plea to Endemol (ECC)

To: Endemol Corporate Communcations (ECC)
Shepherds Building Central
Charecroft Way
Shepherds Bush
London W14 0EE
United Kingdom

T: +44 (0)870 333 1700

We, the undersigned, request that Endemol review their contract to supply their product, "Big Brother", to Channel 5 and after due consideration provide "Big Brother" to another channel which is willing to maintain the standards that Endemol and Big Brother have established on British Television and throughout the world.

We believe that Channel 5 has failed to uphold the standards that are a necessary and fundamental part of Big Brother.

Specifically we think that Channel 5 has failed:

· to ensure that the viewers have access to a live stream that can be watched 24/7 to enable fans to develop their own opinions about the housemates (HMs).

· to ensure that housemates are chosen from a wide range of individuals and ages, backgrounds and abilities.

· to use Social Media fairly, responsibly and interactively; and in so doing have carried out a campaign of account blocking and suspension on Facebook against those who do not agree with their plans.

· to use Social Media correctly; and in so doing have allowed their staff to produce a stream of pointless text updates that are often irrelevant, uninformative and absolutely pointless as an alternative to viewers seeing the show as it was intended, and still provided in many other countries.

· to ensure that housemates are denied any contact with their loved ones, external news and the outside world.

· to maintain the integrity and impartiality of the nomination process.

· to ensure that viewer figures are maintained at sufficiently high levels in UK and elsewhere to ensure that Big Brother is THE water cooler topic of conversation in the UK and other countries that historically have followed the UK version.

· to ensure that everything the HMs do is recorded and broadcast on television and the internet.

· to ensure that sufficiently high standards of personal behaviour are maintained in the house by all HMs.

· to provide confidence in the integrity of the new varied voting systems which provide opportunities for block voting because of the cost structure and ease of submitting many hundreds of votes from multiple Facebook accounts.

· to listen to genuine concerns from genuine long-term fans and have also failed to be honest in their dealings with the viewers.

Additionally we believe that there has been a deliberate attempt by Channel 5 to ensure that there is a high probability of sexual relationships developing within the house. We also think that the age range of the HMs was chosen for that reason and to specifically appeal to 18-34 year olds to the exclusion of all other groups. We further believe that freely available alcohol has been used to encourage such sexual encounters and that these relationships are intended to be used as stories for Channel 5 sister companies. We believe that this entire strategy has been to the detriment of regular family Big Brother viewers.

We would be grateful if you can give this petition your fullest attention. We do not think Channel 5 has shown itself to be a worthy holder of the right to broadcast Big Brother in the UK and are concerned that if the brand name is irretrievably tarnished by this Channel 5 series no other company will wish to take on the programme.

Finally, we believe that Channel 5 have broken the covenant of trust that has existed between the producers and viewers. We fervently wish that UK Big Brother succeeds again but we do not think that Channel 5 has demonstrated that they share our hopes for the future of the programme.