In a matter of hours, Big Brother will crown its 16th winner. We knew from the previous casting announcement that the CBS reality competition series would be back for at least one more season. But today CBS officially announced that Big Brother has been renewed for two more seasons.
CBS's announcement doesn't offer a ton of details about what's planned for the next two seasons, which isn't surprising. Details aren't typically revealed until very close to the premiere of each season. But the Eye does confirm that Season 17 will air during Summer of 2015, and Season 18 will air during Summer 2016. Lest anyone wonder if we were in for another awkward winter season. And Julie Chen's name is mentioned as the host, so it doesn't seem like that's going to change. Hard to imagine Big Brother without Chen guiding us through the live episodes.
Additionally, Big Brother After Dark will return to POP -- the network currently known as TVGN, which is set to re-launch as POP next year. CBS only mentions that the nightly live feed broadcast has been renewed for next summer. No mention of the following season. But we might assume that's something they want to line up on an annual basis.
Big Brother doesn't necessarily earn the awards and/or ratings of shows like Survivor and The Amazing Race, but the summer reality series does ok in the ratings. According to CBS, this summer's season is up +2% in viewers (7.56m from 7.39m) and +4% in adults 18-49 (2.7/09 from 2.6/08), while averaging 3.1/09 in adults 25-54 and 1.9/08 in adults 18-34. And all three weekly broadcasts found a spot among the top 10 programs of the summer in adults 18-49.
As someone who's made Big Brother a summer obsession since Season 2, it's comforting to know that CBS is planning on keeping the series around for another two years. Fans are likely wondering when Big Brother will do another All Star season. The last one was Season 7, which was in 2006. The seasons that followed have occasionally included Houseguests from previous seasons, but there hasn't been a full house of former players since Season 7. While it's possible that next season will be an All-Star season -- we probably speculate that every season -- CBS might be saving that for 2016, a decade after the last one.
Alas, CBS makes no mention of All-Stars in the renewal announcement, so we can really only speculate. In the meantime, casting has begun for Season 17.
Tonight, Big Brother 16 will wrap up. At present, Derrick, Cody and Victoria remain in the game. Two of them will face off during the live finale, and the winner of the final Head of Household competition will decide who comes with them to the Final 2. Who will win? We did a lot of speculating here. And how will the houseguests react to some of the big reveals? They still don't know about Team America, or that Derrick's a cop. We'll have to wait and see what the finale reveals. And then we can start counting down until next summer... and the summer after that.
