Have no idea how the American version of Big Brother works? Then you’ve come to the right place. Below is a description of how the show works in the U S of A.

Nominations

The main difference between Big Brother USA and the show around the world is in the nomination and eviction process. Unlike in other editions of BB, the houseguests are allowed and encouraged to openly discuss nominations. The nomination process itself comprises of three parts which are outlined below.

Head of Household
After every eviction, a competition takes place in the house. This is usually a quiz, but more tough physical tasks and endurance challenges are used from time to time. The winner of this competition becomes Head of Household for the week. The HoH gains various perks and priviledges, such as access to their own private bedroom filled with home comforts, and an automatic luxury shopping budget for the duration of their tenure. More importantly, the HoH is immune from the week’s eviction and is the sole houseguest permitted to nominate.

Nominations ceremony
For the nominations ceremony, the Head of Household is provided with a ‘nominations box’ and a key that represents each other houseguest. In the privacy of his/her bedroom, the HoH must lock the keys in the nominations box, except for the keys of the two houseguests that they wish to nominate.

When the HoH has locked all keys in the nominations box, he/she gathers the other houseguests at the dining table and retrieves the nominations box from their room. The HoH then pulls the first key out of the box, and passes the box to the houseguest that the key represents. This houseguest then pulls out the second key, and the process continues until two houseguests are left without keys. These are the two people that the HoH has nominated for eviction. The HoH will then give a short speech confirming and explaining his/her decision.

Power of Veto
A few days after the nominations ceremony, the Power of Veto competition takes place. Six houseguests - the HoH, the two nominees and three other houseguests picked by a random draw - take part in the competition. The winner gains the Power of Veto, which allows them to remove a houseguest from ‘the chopping block’.

The Veto ceremony then takes place. The winner can either choose to leave the HoH’s nominations as they are, or save one of the nominees from the threat of eviction. If the Veto winner is a nominee, they are allowed to save themselves. If one of the nominations is Vetoed, then the Head of Household must immediately nominate another houseguest to replace them. The HoH is not allowed to nominate the Veto winner or anyone he/she may save.

The two houseguests that are nominated after the Veto ceremony are final and will definitely face the impending eviction.

Evictions

Evictions take place in live shows that air on Wednesdays. All voting is done by the houseguests - no public votes are involved. During the live shows, the houseguests go to the diary room one by one to choose which of the two nominees they would like to vote to evict. The two nominees are not allowed to vote, and the Head of Household may only vote in the event of a tie. For the final eviction of the series, as there are only three houseguests left, the HoH must cast the sole vote to evict.

The nominee who recieves the most votes is then evicted from the house.

Finale

Things are slightly different for the finale. The seven houseguests evicted prior to the finale do not leave the show entirely, but are instead moved to the ‘Sequester House’, which is usually located abroad. They are still treated as evictees and are not eligible to win. These seven evictees are known as ‘The Jury’, ‘The Jury of Seven’ or ‘The Big Brother Jury’, and will be responsible for choosing who wins the show on finale night.

The jury members are allowed to watch some select footage from the main house, including segments which involve all the remaining houseguests, such as nominations or PoV competitions. They do not get to see any personal conversations, Diary Room conversations/interviews, or anything which gives away any strategy or twists in the game.

After the final eviction of the series, the jury members get to ask the two finalists a series of questions, in order to help them make a decision as to who should win.

During the live final, the Jury then votes for the winner, and the finalist with the most votes takes the crown and the $500,000 prize fund. The runner-up is awarded $50,000.

America’s Vote

Whilst the American public does not get any say in who is evicted each week, they will from time to time get to vote in various polls to determine which houseguests should get various rewards, such as a phone call home, an internet chat with show viewers or a walk-on role in a CBS program. Other poll questions have included what appliances the houseguests should be allowed to use, or what kind of challenges Big Brother should set the houseguests. These polls are called “America’s Vote”, and usually start around halfway through the series.

Casting Twists

Every US season of Big Brother between BB4 and BB9 has featured a casting twist. These were as follows:

Big Brother 4: “The Ex Factor”. Five of the houseguests are joined by their ex-partners.

Big Brother 5: “Project DNA (Do Not Assume)”. Two houseguests were twins, but only one was allowed in the house at any one time, so they had to switch frequently. Two houseguests were siblings - but they didn’t find out until later on during the season.

Big Brother 6: “Summer Of Secrets”. Each of the houseguests had a secret partner in the house. If a set of partners made the final, then the prize money would be increased to $1,000,000, with the runner-up receiving $250,000.

Big Brother 7: “All Stars”. All of the houseguests had already appeared in a previous series of the show.

Big Brother 8: Six of the houseguests learnt that they would be playing against their enemies. One housemate, dubbed “America’s Player”, would carry out tasks set by viewers of the show, gaining a financial reward every time a task was successfully completed (this was a twist on the America’s Choice format).

Big Brother 9: “Til Death Do You Part”. All sixteen houseguests were split into couples at the start of the season and had to nominate as couples, sleep as couples - and be evicted as couples. The couples were split up about four weeks into the show.

Big Brother 10 is the first season since Big Brother 3 which has featured no casting twist. All of the thirteen houseguests are complere strangers.