Bigg Boss is an Indian reality show franchise that is based on The Dutch reality TV show Big Brother. The show was created through Endemol Shine India through Viacom18 and Disney Star. The various versions of the show are made available through the OTT platforms.
Bigg Boss was first conceived in the Hindi language, but has since been expanded into seven languages spoken across the Indian subcontinent, which includes Kannada, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi and Malayalam.
There have been seven versions of the show that were filmed in various languages spoken in the Indian subcontinent. The first episode of the series was Bigg Boss in Hindi, that debuted in 2006 on Sony Bigg Boss Telugu Vote TV, and from season two it was moved to and is currently on Colors TV. 2013 was the year that the franchise expanded its reach to Kannada by launching Colors Kannada and Bengali through ETV Bangla, later rebranded as Colors Bangla. In 2017, it expanded its reach into Tamil via Star Vijay and in Telugu through Star Maa. In 2018, it ventured into Marathi via Colors Marathi and into Malayalam via Asianet.
Though only celebrities were selected to be as housemates in the first seasons however, viewers from all walks of life have been chosen to be on the show in the latest seasons of Hindi, Kannada, Telugu, and Malayalam versions of the show.