Carole Vincent (Big Brother)

For the first time since Big Brother 5 in 2004, there were no highlight shows broadcast on Saturday nights.

Big Brother 2007, also known as Big Brother 8, was the eighth series of the British reality television series Big Brother.

The show followed twenty-three contestants, known as housemates, who were isolated from the outside world for an extended period of time in a custom built House.

Each week, one or more of the housemates were eliminated from the competition and left the House.

The last remaining housemate, Brian Belo, was declared the winner, winning a cash prize of £100,000 (the second housemate to do so after Liam McGough was awarded the same amount in the third week).

The series launched on Channel 4 on 30 May 2007 and ended on 31 August 2007, lasting 94 days - the longest British edition of Big Brother to date.

Davina McCall returned as presenter for her eighth consecutive year.

Eleven housemates entered on launch night, with an additional seven men being introduced by the time of the fourth week.

The series was watched by an average of 3.9 million viewers, the lowest viewed series of the show at the time.

The first series of Big Brother to air since the highly controversial fifth celebrity series, Big Brother 8 was the subject of viewer complaints and press attention, mainly regarding the ejection of a housemate for the use of a racial slur.

The first round of auditions started on 6 January 2007 at the SECC in Glasgow, where there was a queue of three hundred people.

On 8 March 2007, it was announced that The Carphone Warehouse would not return to sponsor Big Brother 8 after cancelling its sponsorship of Celebrity Big Brother 5, and on 21 March, that Virgin Media would sponsor the show, for a reported £3 million.

Virgin Media's idents for the show use footage from Big Brother programmes from all around the world, including Germany, Brazil, Philippines and the Netherlands.

The iconic Big Brother eye has been redesigned to what has been described as a "centrifugal inter-locking RGB rainbow test card" by its designer Daniel Eatock.

On Channel 4, Davina McCall remained as main host of the live shows such as live launch, evictions, finale and other special shows where there may be a twist taking place.

Marcus Bentley returned as narrator of the nightly highlight shows.

On 28 November 2007 he announced his departure from the show.

Channel 4 also broadcast the Ofcom statement on the morning of 31 May 2007 before the early morning repeat, and again immediately before the first eviction on Friday 15 June.

His last presenting role was for the following Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack in January 2008.

Diary Room Uncut returned in the same time slot as the previous year.

On Fridays, housemates would make podcasts.

Big Brother's Big Mouth returned in the same late night timeslot, however Russell Brand did not return, having quit the show earlier in the year.

No permanent replacement was made and a different presenter/host took control each week.

Before the launch programme, Channel 4 presented a statement from Ofcom explaining the racism incidents from Celebrity Big Brother earlier in the year.

This was followed immediately by a Channel 4 ident, and then the Big Brother titles.

It was initially believed that this would be the last series to be aired from the house in Elstree Studios, with a new house set to be built in Hammersmith for 2008, although, Endemol decided to renew the lease at its current location for another two years.

The layout of the house remained much the same as the previous series, although the kitchen moved to the other side of the main living area.

One big theme in the house was annoyance; the kitchen appliances were scattered around the house, with the oven and heat proof surface in the bedroom and the fridge in the garden.

As further annoyance, the bathtub was placed in an open space right next to the main living room.

Where the oven was in the bedroom was approximately where the kitchen area was located in Big Brother 7.

The bedroom contained a single, double and triple bed as well as two four-person beds.

Outside the bedroom window, in the main living area, is a lip shaped sofa that the presenters of the show refer to as "the lips".

The house also contains a salon/bathroom, which houses two large hair dryers and two steam suits.

As well as the kitchen fridge, the garden contained a swimming pool, a seating area and, due to the smoking ban that came into effect in all public places during the series, a smoking area which housemates had to use from Day 1, even though the smoking ban didn't come into play until 1 July.

In the early years of Big Brother, a live stream would feature on Channel E4, however this was omitted from the schedule until the final series (BB11-2010).

Sunday night's highlight show would show just a short amount of footage from Friday, and would instead focus more on Saturday's events in the house.

McCall also hosted Big Brother: On the Couch, a psychology show broadcast on Sunday before the main show.

It was similar to Big Brother's Big Brain, which was broadcast the previous year before being axed.

It did not return in any subsequent series' of Big Brother.

Dermot O'Leary returned to host Big Brother's Little Brother.