Big Brother Africa show postponed after game house burns down

Kampala

Continental reality television series Big Brother Africa season 9 will not kick off this Sunday as planned. The show was suspended till further notice, after the Big Brother house situated in Sesani Studios in Johannesburg, reportedly burnt down on Tuesday evening.

The devastating development was communicated by M-Net and Endemol South Africa, the companies behind the continental TV show.

Dubbed the Big Brother Hotshots, the ninth edition of the continental TV series was slated to kick off this Sunday at 7pm.

The show brings together open-minded, bold and adventurous contestants from 14 countries across Africa and they do their best to outshine each other in the hope of convincing Africa that they are worth winning the cash prize of $300,000 (about Shs765m).

In a statement released to The Daily Monitor by the Multichoice Uganda Publicist Tina Wamala, M-Net and Endemol are urgently looking for an alternative Big Brother house in which to film the production.

“This production has highly technical infrastructure, camera and edit requirements. An alternative is not immediately available. Every effort will be made to find a solution as quickly as possible to ensure that Africa’s biggest reality show will continue,” the statement read in part.

Wamala noted that that the cause of the fire was unknown and no one was injured; “investigations will commence as soon as it is safe to do so,” Wamala said.

Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Uganda are some of the countries that are set to take part in the reality TV series. Rwanda and Sierra Leone had earlier pulled out.