AfricaMagic’s Big Brother Africa has smashed records since it first launched and with its eighth season already in production, this week the show’s fans emphatically proved that it remains arguably the biggest and most popular television series on the continent, when they helped the show hit a milestone 1-million Facebook likes!

Having championed the concept of audience engagement from its very first day on air, Big Brother Africa has reached out to DStv viewers in a variety of innovative ways including the option for viewers to send messages directly to the screen of the live 24/7 broadcast, and in that way sharing their thoughts, opinions and feelings about the show directly with others watching in 47 countries.



But as social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have grown rapidly across Africa, so too has the reach of the series as fans dissect actions in the Big Brother house, anticipate twists and turns and share breaking news in what is a remarkable display of African dialogue around a program that is both hugely entertaining and at the same time, socially informative.

“This is social engagement at its finest. At one level, it’s simply Africans gathering around a specific topic whose conversations are centralised around Big Brother. But on another level, it speaks to the continuous desire for connection that Africans have. It clearly demonstrates the growing reality of pan-Africanism, the increasing sense that Africans are stronger together than separately. It’s a remarkable achievement for a show like Big Brother Africa and one that is only possible because a million people made it so,” says Biola Alabi MD for M-Net Africa.

She continues, “Fans of this show challenge us every day to make something that they will enjoy, they push us every day to keep the concept fresh, they motivate us every day to keep Big Brother Africa dynamic. So this is their success. Our thanks go to every single one of them. And from Sunday 26 May we’ll bring them something fun and new that they will not want to miss!”

With the entries for the show closing on Valentine’s Day, Big Brother Africa 8 is set to run live 24/7 for 91 days on DStv, starting on the 26th of May. For more information on the series, check out these online homes: africamagic website ; Twitter; Facebook; YouTube

Produced for AfricaMagic by Endemol SA, Big Brother Africa currently has 279 000 Twitter followers. In 2012, the show drew over 2.3 million messages to TV, over 2 million unique online browsers and 128 000 000 website page views.