Germany plans reality show 'without end' in new Big Brother village

Germany is attempting to take reality TV to new lengths - and possibly depths - with the world's first real-life Truman Show, a programme, its producers say, that could run without end. Near Cologne, construction is under way of the top-secret set for Big Brother: Das Dorf (Big Brother: The Village), the latest project by producers Endemol, which is set to be screened on 1 March.

Germany is attempting to take reality TV to new lengths - and possibly depths - with the world's first real-life Truman Show, a programme, its producers say, that could run without end. Near Cologne, construction is under way of the top-secret set for Big Brother: Das Dorf (Big Brother: The Village), the latest project by producers Endemol, which is set to be screened on 1 March.

Unlike previous Big Brother shows, contestants living in the 4,000 sq m mini-town won't be playing for a cash prize or a stab at C-list fame. Instead, they'll be expected to spend decades in the village - working, marrying, breeding, divorcing and dying.

"We're creating a brand new world," says Katja Hofem-Best, entertainment head at Big Brother broadcaster RTL2. It is thought that the village will include shops, a market square, church tower and even its own wood, where, according to one report, "inhabitants will be able to gather their own mushrooms". Like the 1998 cult film The Truman Show there is even talk of shipping in "real people" to boost the village population. The producers are utterly convinced they have a hit on their hands. But others seem already to have lost interest.

"Big Brother that will run for decades?" laughs Professor Jo Groebel, head of the European Media Institute. "I give it five years, max." Others are even more sceptical. "It'll survive for six months and will definitely be the last series they make in Germany," says Dr Lutz Erbring, a media specialist at Berlin's Free University and a man convinced that reality TV is dying out.

It's not the first time Germanyhas attempted to push back the boundaries of reality TV further than anyone else. As well as letting Russian TV incarcerate 12 young women in a shipping container for 100 days last year, then denying them food, the last Big Brother series, BB5, was the world's first to put housemates away for an entire year and offer a €1m prize to the winner. But the show, which launched last March, never took off and now, limping towards the end of its run, has only about one million viewers.

Commentators say Big Brother: Das Dorf, dubbed a real-life soap by Endemol, is Germany's last-ditch attempt to breathe life back into reality TV. With the latest figures revealing unemployment at 4.4 million, and tough labour market reforms just beginning to bite, there is something attractive about a small, sheltered community with the promise of a job for life. Some 20,000 applied for a place on the last series, and reports say all contestants on the new show will be single and unemployed.

One contender, or so he claims, is Jerry Bejaoui. He might not be unemployed quite yet, but the cheeky 23-year-old from Stuttgart and one-time BB5 cast member can't quite adjust to life in the real world. He'd rather not go back to his job in a spark-plug factory. Instead, he wants to come back for some more of the "fairy-tale life" he had in the Big Brother house. "What's wrong with that?" asked the man who had sex in the Big Brother toilet. But Endemol seems undecided whether to let Bejaoui perform for the cameras for the rest of his life.

Even if Bejaoui isn't let back in, there should still be plenty of procreation in the Big Brother village. A whole new generation of Germans could be born into this artificial world. Likely as not, though, it won't happen. Even if children are born on Germany's very own Truman Show, by the time it happens, no one - not even Big Brother - will be watching.