Big Brother host Davina McCall has defended the show and reiterated her commitment to presenting it in an interview with The Times.
Talking to the paper’s Tim Teeman, she said: “It should go on forever. It’s a great basic format: lock up a group of strangers for the summer, isolate them, watch them interact, set them tasks, evict them.
“It’s soap opera, great entertainment. There’s no reason for it to end. Why should it end, as long as it attracts audiences and makes money for Channel 4?”
Regarding her future as BB’s host, she said: “Yes, I’m staying with the show. I never said I wanted to leave. I don’t want to leave.
“If the show is recommissioned, and I expect it will be after the contract expires next year, I still want to present it. That show has been my constant for the last ten years.
“How clear can I make this? I love this show. I mean that. I don’t want it to end. I want it carry on for ever. For years.
“And I want to present it until I am very old. If I have my way they’ll have me on that stage on my deathbed.”
Asked for her thoughts about the ‘race row’ involving Jade Goody and Shilpa Shetty which engulfed the 2007 Celebrity series, she said that producers should have intervened quickly “before it got out of hand”, but added that she thought Goody just ‘didn’t like Shetty’ and that she was not racist.
Following this, she was questioned about claims that Big Brother exploits ‘vulnerable’ people for entertainment, to which she replied: “They have applied to come on a television programme. The producers choose engaging personalities but I know they don’t choose vulnerable people or people just to cause conflict.
“All of them get ‘the talk of doom’ at the beginning: ‘You’re not going to be famous very long, if you think you will be, think again. Treat it as an amazing experience’.
She also rubbished accusations that the show is ‘dumbed down’, adding: “It’s not responsible for dumbing down. It’s an intelligent programme. It tackles issues like sexism and racism.
“You watch people evolve, relationships, personalities grow. It’s an optimistic show, not a degrading one. You learn such a lot about human nature.
“In fact, there should be more Big Brother on television. It should be on all the time. Seriously.”
Big Brother 10 begins on June 4th and 9.00pm.
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