Global Big Brother (season 1)

***Global Big Brother 1*** is the first season of the global television program *Global Big Brother*. While the show features contestants from all across the world, the program is based and filmed in the United States, but available to watch in over 90 countries via several different streaming services. The show follows a group of contestants, known as HouseGuests, who live in a house together while being filmed at all times, and having no communication with the outside world. The HouseGuests competed to win a cash prize of USD $500,000.

The season ran for 49 days. 29-year-old Marcel Tomáš from Slovakia was declared the winner, defeating Mária Biague from Guinea-Bissau in the final jury vote. Marcel won by a unanimous vote over Mária. Danijela Vukašinović who placed third overall during the season was voted the World's Favorite HouseGuest by fans globally, and won a cash prize of USD $30,000.

## Format

The first season of *Global Big Brother* featured twelve HouseGuests from across the globe, representing twelve different countries and five continents. Over the span of seven weeks (49 days), the HouseGuests lived in a house entirely sequestered, with no contact with the outside world. Each week, HouseGuests would compete in two competitions: at the beginning of the week, they competed in the Head of Household (HoH) competition. The winner of the HOH competition would thereby become immune for the rest of the week, and have the power to nominate two HouseGuests for eviction. The second competition which is titled the Power of Veto (PoV) competition features six HouseGuests per cycle: the HoH, the two nominees, and three players selected by random draw. The winner of the Power of Veto competition becomes immune from being nominated, and has the power to either remove one of the nominees from the nomination block, or keep nominations the same. If the PoV holder removes one of the nominees, the current Head of Household must select a replacement nominee from the remaining HouseGuests. On eviction night, the HouseGuests must vote to evict one of the nominees from the house, with the exception of the HoH and two nominees who are not allowed to vote. The HoH may only vote if there is a tie in the voting, and in that case will cast the tiebreaker vote to evict. The nominee who receives the most votes is thereby evicted from the house. The final seven evictees make up the jury, who on finale night vote for one of the final two competitors to win the game. The jury is sequestered in a separate house, still with zero contact from the outside world.

Due to the HouseGuests being from all across the globe, there are several processes that the HouseGuests must go through in order to stay in the United States for an extended period of time. Because of this, the game only lasted seven weeks this season, featuring one double eviction, and a sped up version of the final week with two evictees in the span of six days leading up to the finale. The jury was originally slated to have seven members to avoid a tie, however when Gëzim Hasanaj decided to walk from the competition during the final nine, the jury size was changed to six, with a fan vote taking the place of Hasanaj's vote in the event of a tie. Because the HouseGuests evicted prior to Hasanaj who had been evicted during the pre-jury stage of the game had already left the house and flown home, with access to game information, there was no way to bump the jury size back up to seven. With jury being officially announced to the HouseGuests prior to Hasanaj's decision to quit, production did not want to take away a spot on the jury from whoever ended up in eighth place that was already announced to be guaranteed prior. In addition, had Hasanaj not walked, there would have been another double eviction during Week 6 that never took place.

On finale night, a reunion took place after the jury vote was read. All pre-juror contestants were called in via Zoom to participate in the reunion, with the jurors and final two being in-person. Danijela was announced as the World's Favorite HouseGuest during the reunion special.

## HouseGuests

The HouseGuests for the first season of *Global Big Brother* were revealed on November 15, 2023.

## Trivia

* Not counting evictions that featured a sole vote (final four and final three), half of the eviction votes were unanimous, while half were not.