local news

  Rival TV station behind ‘Big Brother’ tip-off

Alistair, the winner of Malta’s real TV version, ‘Mhux Grande Fratello’.

The judicial protest presented on Wednesday by the Dutch ‘Big Brother’ company, against PBS and ‘Where’s Everybody’, is the result of a tip-off made by an aggrieved rival political TV station.

MaltaToday reveals today that executives from a rival Maltese television station contacted the Dutch company, Endemol Entertainment and sent over a number of recorded copies of the Maltese version, ‘Mhux Grande Fratello’.

The TV station in question had undertaken to produce a Maltese version of Big Brother and the production was entrusted to a popular veteran female presenter and actor.

MaltaToday has been informed that preparations for the show had already started, when PBS and ‘Where’s Everybody’ pre-empted the production with their own version, ‘Mhux Grande Fratello’.

It seems that ‘Mhux Grande Fratello’s’ commercial success proved detrimental to the rival TV station’s advertising revenue. In a bid to get back at PBS and ‘Where’s Everybody’, the station in typical big brother style, ‘reported’ the public broadcaster and the production company to the Dutch firm.

Nonetheless, legal sources told MaltaToday that the fact that the Dutch company presented a judicial protest and not a full-scale court case indicates that they are only interested in preventing Maltese companies from producing any similar shows in the future.

Furthermore, the ‘Grande Fratello’ logo and trademark were never registered in Malta when ‘Mhux Grande Fratello’ was on air and this could militate in favour of the Maltese companies.

In the meantime, both PBS and ‘Where’s Everybody’ presented their counter-protest in court on Friday, in which they denied the allegations made by Endemol Entertainment.

The Maltese companies contested the Dutch company’s assertions that ‘Mhux Grande Fratello’ was produced in an identical way to the Italian version ‘Grande Fratello’. They also said that the Big Brother trademark was not registered in Malta and therefore PBS and ‘Where’s Everybody’ were not obliged to ask for authorisation to produce the show.

Endemol Entertainment is a producer of content for television and Internet platforms. The company, with its head office in the Netherlands, has subsidiaries and joint ventures in 17 countries, including the major European markets. Endemol is also part of the Spanish telecommunications giant, Telefonica.

An Italian registered production firm, Aran Endemol, produced the Italian version of Big Brother, ‘Grande Fratello’, under authorisation from the Dutch company. The Italian company is based in Rome and produced the highly popular ‘Grande Fratello’ for Canale 5.