Big Brother 2008 (UK)

Big Brother 2008, also known as Big Brother 9, was the ninth series of the British reality television series Big Brother, that aired on Channel 4 and E4. The series launched on 5 June 2008, and ran for 13 weeks until 5 September 2008.

The winner was Rachel Rice, who beat bookies' favourite Michael Hughes in the final vote with 51.3%. At the time of the series, Big Brother 9 was the least watched summer series in Big Brother's history, until the following series, with an average of only 3.6 million, down on Big Brother 8's by 0.3m.

No housemates in this series were represented in Ultimate Big Brother, a mini-series to mark the end of Big Brother on Channel 4. However Rex, Kathreya and Stuart entered to take part in tasks.

The series was launched on 5 June 2008, and ran for 13 weeks until 5 September 2008. This series started later than normal. It was rumoured that this was so that it did not clash with Britain's Got Talent, which was being aired on ITV during May. Auditions were held from 21 November 2007 to 25 January 2008. The main show for the program was a highlights show, shown at 10pm on Monday to Wednesday, then at 9pm on Thursday to Sunday, with each program lasting an hour. Each Friday a housemate was evicted, the announcement of the loser of the public vote was announced live by Davina McCall at the end of the first of two programs shown on the Friday. There was then a second program at 10.30pm when McCall interviews the evictee, this second program usually lasted until 11.00pm, unless there was a change in plans (such as new housemates going in or a double eviction) then the program was longer. For the first time since Big Brother 4 all of McCall's interactions with the house (except for the final night) took place in a studio to stop the crowd chants from influencing the housemates and to enforce the fundamental rule of "no contact with the outside world." This new medium of communicating with the house would continue into the next celebrity and civilian series.

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