Date: 12th December 2000

Space;The Final Game Show Frontier


A German company has spent $24 million to buy seven flights to the International Space Station for winning contestants on seven international versions of Big Brother, the BBC reported Monday.

The name of the company was not cited in a news item posted on BBC News Online, but it did cite Ute Krippendorf, who has been a spokeswoman for Cologne-based Brainpool AG, a TV production company. Krippendorf commented that the Big Brother finale for each version could be "the most expensive program" ever conceived. She added that the company had bought seven flights between 2002 and 2008, with one flight each year being assigned to a different country.

There was no indication which country's version of Big Brother would have first crack at the space flight.

Source: Studio Briefing