The original house took 75 workmen 131 days to build using 20km of cable, 57 mirrors, 33 cameras and 50 microphones.
In BB7, Dawn Blake became the first contestant to be ejected for having contact with the outside world. Dawn organized a special code with her family: if there was any bad press regarding her, then their family would tell Big Brother that her sister was ill. Dawn received this message and informed the other housemates of this code.
The now iconic "Eye" logo was designed by Daniel Eatock of design agency Foundation33. On the billboard advertisements for series 7 there was no name or date, just the black and gold eye.
The show was invented by John de Mol of the Netherlands and developed by his production company, Endemol. It has been a prime time hit in 19 different countries.
Series 1-6 of Big Brother (2000-2005), including the four series of Celebrity Big Brother in between, were some of the very few programs on mainstream British terrestrial television that were broadcast in the old 4:3 aspect ratio as opposed to the more common 16:9 wide-screen format. (Except the Big Brother Panto, which was in wide-screen). The reason for this is unclear, but was believed to be because of the size of some of the hidden cameras. However, from Big Brother 7 (2006) the aspect ratio has been switched in favor of the 16:9 format, with Big Brother, and all of its sister shows, broadcasting in wide-screen.