The tenth season of the Australian reality television series, Big Brother, also known as Big Brother 2013, began on 28 July 2013, with a pre-recorded launch show airing on 29 July 2013 on the Nine Network. On 6 November 2013, after 101 days of competition, Tim Dormer won the competition and the $250,000 prize. It is the second season of the show to air on the network after it picked up the series in 2012, following a four-year absence. Sonia Kruger continued to host the show, with Mike Goldman continuing as narrator.
This season ran during the 2013 Australian Federal Election. As Australia has compulsory voting for elections, the housemates (except Jade, as she was not on the electoral roll) had to vote for this election while in the house. The Houseguest also received campaign messages recorded by each leader from the major political parties.
Nathan Little was the first housemate in the Big Brother franchise worldwide to evict himself and give his spot to another player.
Dormer later won a public vote to compete in the fourth season of Big Brother Canada. After 77 Days, he placed third. Dormer, Drew and Smyth later competed in the fourteenth season of Big Brother Australia as a part of Big Brother Royalty.
The renewal of Big Brother was predicted before the finale of the previous season due to the success the reboot had in ratings. The renewal was confirmed when it was included in Nine's 2013 programming advertisements from 23 November 2012. Open auditions for the new season took place in April 2013. That year, the capital cities of Darwin and Hobart were not visited, however, Newcastle was. For the first time since moving to Nine, the show accepted video auditions provided the auditionee lived more than 500 km away from the closest audition venue. In mid-July, an announcement on the official Facebook page confirmed that the tenth season of Big Brother Australia would feature more housemates to enter the house than in previous seasons. On 21 July 2013, after the housemates had entered lockdown, it was confirmed that a weekly live games task would take place in the first four weeks of the season; it was known as the 'Saturday Showdown' and was hosted by Shelley Craft, with commentary from Mike Goldman and 2012 housemate Michael Beveridge (although the 'Saturday Showdown' was later revealed on the official website to be a pre-recorded showing of the previous night when the games took place and that no live recording would be done). This was similar to the Friday Night Live games format used in previous seasons. Later that same day, it was revealed that "the biggest twist in Big Brother history" would involve the possibility of a separation within the house, hinted at in cryptic announcements from Big Brother and in advertisements showing sneak peeks of the new season. It was suspected that the twist would somehow affect the running and outcome of the Saturday Showdown. On 25 July 2013, speculations surfaced on whether the eviction shows would be moving to Monday nights due to the returning of Australia's Got Talent. These rumours were later confirmed by Nine before the show began with a pre-recorded launch on 29 July 2013.
On 24 October 2013, it was announced that Big Brother Australia would be returning to New Zealand on TV3, after a seven-year absence following the conclusion of the 2005 series. The series aired on an almost four-month delay, a departure from when the series previously aired on TV2 and Prime less than 24 hours after airing in Australia. The premiere was on 25 November 2013.
Twelve housemates entered on Day 0. Two more housemates (Drew and Jade) entered on Day 1 as a fake married couple. On Day 8, Rohan and sisters Katie & Lucy (playing together as one housemate) entered the house. On Day 58, two male intruders, Justynn and Nathan, entered the house. Finally, on Day 64, Madaline and Boog entered as the female intruders.
On Day 0, Big Brother announced that half of the housemates will move to the Safe House or the Halfway House. The Safe House was luxuriously decorated, while the Halfway House expressed simplicity and discomfort. The two houses were separated by a single glass wall. Housemates in either house were forbidden from crossing the divide. Every Tuesday, housemates with the most nomination points that week moved to or stayed in the Halfway House. On Day 24, the two houses made one house, with the divides between them removed.
The Nominations Super Power is a weekly twist to nominations. It is a special secret power given to a housemate. The Nominations Super Power gives an advantage to that housemate for nominations in that given week.
Housemates are allowed to distribute five nomination points between their two nominations, with a maximum of four points to be allocated to one housemate. The six housemates with the most nomination points face the public vote. In the event of a tie, the housemate with the most nomination points determines how the tie will be broken. In addition, nominations are held in a sound-proof chamber inside a Nominations Room, as opposed to the Diary Room.
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In response to declining ratings and viewer complaints, several changes were made during the fourth week of the season. The second eviction, originally planned to be a single eviction, became a double eviction necessitated by the cancellation of the Halfway House concept on the Wednesday.
The Saturday Showdown also moved from its Saturday timeslot a week earlier than originally planned. Showdown was intended to air on a Saturday for the first four weeks, up until 24 August 2013, before moving to Thursday due to the NRL finals airing from the following weekend. Showdown was no longer hosted by Shelley Craft, and Michael Beveridge no longer provided commentary as the games were now shown in sequence during the daily show depicting Wednesday's events â with Mike Goldman, the sole survivor of the revamp, who provided the narration as per normal.
At the same time, it was also announced that beginning on 27 August 2013, Nine would air a new show titled Late Night Feast at 9:30PM once a week. Each episode depicted the events that took place during a party thrown by Big Brother days earlier on Friday night. Each party was themed â with the first being Las Vegas and Hawaiian the following week â and followed a loose structure. While the housemates sat at a table eating food and drink provided by Big Brother, they discussed topics aimed more towards adult viewing â including religion, sexuality and politics â and then proceeded to play party games and were then given music to dance to.
Unlike other adult-orientated shows that had previously aired on Ten â UpLate, Uncut and Adults Only â the show was not hosted, nor did Mike Goldman provide any narration â instead footage of housemates in the diary room on the Saturday, discussing the previous night's events, was shown to link the various segments together.
At the end of the eviction show on 23 September 2013, Sonia Kruger announced that the final Late Night Feast would air the following night. However the weekly event continued to take place in the house, with little to no footage making it into the daily show.
On 6 September 2013, Dreamworld emailed people who had already purchased tickets for the 30 September 2013 eviction with the information that the eviction date had been changed to 2 October 2013 as a result of "scheduling changes" and that all evictions from that date would occur on a Wednesday. Despite initial speculation that this was due to increased airtime for Australia's Got Talent, it was later confirmed that a 90-minute show would continue to air on a Monday â indicating the change was a result of Nine wanting to move eviction shows so they no longer aired against The X Factor.
The show that was originally intended to be an eviction on 30 September 2013 was used as an intruder eviction and also added two new female intruders to the house.
As a result of these changes, the entire schedule for the show was re-worked and came into effect from 1 October 2013. Nominations moved from Tuesday to Thursday and were cut down to 60 minutes. Big Brother Confidential moved from Wednesday to Thursday airing immediately after nominations and the Monday and Tuesday shows became daily shows, with Monday covering the three previous days in the house. Showdown took place on Mondays, and was incorporated into Tuesday's daily show.
Beginning in the eleventh week, the Tuesday daily show had its length reduced to 60 minutes â the Tuesday timeslot, which up until the week prior was used for nominations, had run for 90 minutes since the series began.
Starting in the twelfth week, Nine removed Confidential from the schedule after it followed the nominations show on a Thursday for just two weeks. As a result, Thursday's broadcast was trimmed to 60 minutes, down 30 minutes from the length it was at the beginning of the series.
Ultimately this proved to be a cancellation of the entire Confidential format, as unlike its early end the previous year, it did not return for the subsequent series.
Originally planned to end on 23 October 2013, rumours began circulating in late September 2013 that the series had been extended by two weeks. This was fuelled by the previous year's winner, Benjamin Norris, mentioning an extension in a blog post on 17 September 2013 that covered that week's fake double eviction. It was also further fuelled by the date of the finale being removed from the terms and conditions of the KFC Say It with Chicken competition that would see two tickets to the finale being given away. On 26 September 2013, tickets appeared on the Dreamworld website to an Eviction show that would take place on the original finale date, thus confirming that the series had been extended in some capacity.
On 21 October 2013, the new date for the finale was revealed; the series would end on 6 November 2013.
The extension allowed a total of four intruders to enter the house as, for the first time in the series history, there were no plans to include them in the original plan for this series.
Ratings are rounded to the nearest ten thousand. Figures in bold include consolidated viewing figures.
A number of special episodes aired during the original run of the season. These included:
On Day 2, Sonia Kruger hosted a special live show that saw the second part of the season's twist revealed as Drew and Jade entered the Safe House pretending to be a married couple. They were tasked with trying to fool the others with this prospect for the whole of the first week. If they were successful, they would earn immunity from the first weekly eviction; if they were found out, they would both automatically face eviction.
On Day 8, Sonia Kruger hosted a special live show that saw new housemates Rohan and Katie & Lucy enter the house and Drew and Jade's failure of their secret task revealed to the housemates.
On Day 58, Sonia Kruger hosted a special live show that saw two intruders enter the house, Nathan and Justynn..
On Day 64, Sonia Kruger hosted a special live show that saw two female intruders enter the Big Brother house. The first was Boog, a 23-year-old personal trainer from Melbourne, and, the other, Madaline, a 24-year-old lawyer from Sydney.
On Day 95, Sonia Kruger hosted a special live Halloween show that saw the remaining five housemates, Boog, Drew, Jade, Tahan and Tim to view 'trick' and 'treat' packages. The 'trick' packages contained negative parts of each housemates time including being talked about by other housemates, nominations, etc. The 'treat' packaged contained positive parts of each housemates time along with some messages from family and friends.