How Bigg Boss Marathi balances TV, OTT and language loyalty

Big Brother in the Netherlands, Grande Fratello in Italy, Pinoy Big Brother in the Philippines, and Secret Story in France and Portugal. If you thought that the captive reality TV show that makes voyeurs out of viewers was only the domain of Bigg Boss in India, think again.

Bigg Boss was inspired by the first Dutch version, titled Big Brother, created by John de Mol Jr in 1999. The name "Big Brother" was, in turn, inspired by George Orwell’s novel 1984, where an all-seeing leader keeps the population under constant surveillance. Rings a bell?

“We currently produce the show across 62 countries/territories and multiple languages,” says Rishi Negi, CEO of Endemol Shine India, the Indian arm of Endemol Shine International (now Banijay Group), responsible for the production of the many iterations of the franchise in alignment with its worldwide counterparts.

Bigg Boss debuted in India in 2006 as the only Indian variation at the time. However, now Bigg Boss has multiple language versions in Hindi (19 seasons), Kannada (12 seasons), Tamil (9 seasons), Telugu (9 seasons), Malayalam (7 seasons), Marathi (6 seasons), and Bengali (2 seasons).

As the dust settles on Season 19 of Bigg Boss Hindi, which concluded on December 7, 2025, the spotlight has shifted instantly to the regional version: Bigg Boss Marathi Season 6, which launched on January 11, 2026, and is available on Colors Marathi and JioHotstar. 

365 days of Bigg Boss

When Negi was asked if the conclusion of Bigg Boss Hindi and the nearly immediate launch of Bigg Boss Marathi were part of a larger strategy to dominate the Indian living room year-round, he denied it. He emphasised that the primary goal was to prevent any overlap between the two versions to avoid cannibalisation.

“Both languages are extremely important for us, and any overlap would just mean that you have one language eating into the other. It could be Marathi eating into Hindi or Hindi eating into Marathi,” he explains.

He also adds that according to the data, cannibalisation is a possibility only between Hindi and Marathi as “the other languages running parallelly doesn't make a difference because those languages are very pocketed”.

“I would love to do a 365-days-a-year kind of Bigg Boss, though. It happens in some markets,” he adds. Season 5 of Big Brother Germany ran for exactly 365 days (from March 2, 2004, to March 1, 2005) as opposed to the 15-week runs in other languages. 

The most popular version of Bigg Boss in India

Terming the comparison “unfair”, Negi explains, “When it comes to Hindi, you're talking to a much larger audience in terms of population size and geography.”

“The moment you get into the regional languages, you're talking to a smaller language demographic, which specifically watches that show, and that's why comparing all of them would be difficult, and Hindi invariably will take the lion's share.”

However, if only numbers are to be compared, Bigg Boss Hindi “is the market leader across all languages”, confirms Negi.

OTT versus TV

With Season 6 of Bigg Boss Marathi airing simultaneously on Colors Marathi and JioStar, concerns about digital platforms cannibalising TV ratings may be rife, but. Negi “is not worried”.

“If you had asked me this question when we did Bigg Boss Hindi on OTT first and TV an hour and a half later for the first time, I would have been extremely worried. I was like, oh my God, if it's going to come an hour and a half earlier and people will watch it on JioStar, nobody's going to come and watch it on TV.”

However, “ek India hai aur ek Bharat hai,” he notes, explaining that there's still a huge demographic that's watching on TV who do their “appointment viewing” as well as the younger urban audience that streams it on JioStar.

Fear of IPL (or the lack of it)

The Indian Premier League (IPL) is often considered the death knell for television ratings, but Negi remains unfazed by the impending cricket season, starting March 26, 2026. 

His confidence stems from a shift in consumer behaviour and the loyalty the Bigg Boss format commands before the first ball is even bowled.

"Since we were not looking at clashing with the Hindi language per se, we are clashing with the IPL, but I am not that worried because by the time we go into IPL, people who want to see the show would have already decided they want to see the show," Negi asserts.

The 2024 hiatus: pivot over panic

Addressing the gap year for Bigg Boss Marathi, Negi dismisses rumours of a decline in reality TV’s popularity, attributing the pause to "dynamic" leadership transitions at the channel partner (JioStar). 

"Somebody was heading the business, had just moved out, somebody else had come in... we kept moving the timeline, and then it clashed with Hindi," he explains. Rather than force an overlap, the team used the break to revamp the show’s look and host for its 2025 return.

Negi attributes the revamped image of the show to the appointment of actor Riteish Deshmukh as the new host, who, he claims, “played a critical role in the way the season goes”.

Negi is bullish about the health of the reality TV genre, arguing that while "song and dance" formats have hit a ceiling, the "social experiment" remains bulletproof.

He believes that reality TV is doing well. "It is all about the kind of content that you are putting out. You have to keep moving ahead with time... Bigg Boss as a structure itself gives you the ability to keep pivoting and keep adding new elements to a format."

Endemol Shine India also produces other popular reality TV shows in India, such as Khatron Ke Khiladi, MasterChef India, MTV Hustle, Lock Upp, Star vs Food Survival, Top Model India, and The Voice India.

Weaving in cultural nuances while maintaining the global format

For Negi, the secret sauce of Bigg Boss lies in a glocal strategy that marries localised behavioural traits with the required global structure. 

When asked how the production weaves in regional cultural nuances without diluting the brand, he points to the cultural inclinations of specific states as a primary driver for content adaptation.

"You have to look at what could be allowed or not allowed in a particular language," Negi explains. "To give you a classic example, in Malayalam, viewers love it when there are debates if one has to reason out for a task." 

Negi claims that the population of Kerala loves to debate off-screen, which is why they prefer seeing it on screen as well. 

However, while the tasks may lean into regional nuances, the format of the Bible remains sacred. Negi is adamant that the show’s longevity, with Bigg Boss Hindi entering its landmark 20th season this year and Marathi hitting Season 6, is purely a result of this discipline.

“The format is a captive reality show. It is a social experiment. So, we remain true to that.”

The 'personality over popularity' casting mantra

In an era where social media clout often dictates brand deals, one might assume a million-strong following is a guaranteed ticket into the Bigg Boss house. Not so, says Negi. 

While the show now integrates creators and digital personas to "bring in a certain audience", the vetting process is brutal. "If somebody is extremely boring... they might be having a great following, but that doesn't qualify you for the show," he says flatly.

For Negi, casting is less about celebrity and more about chemistry, or the lack thereof. The house is a "template" or a "tree" that requires a specific mix of archetypes to survive a 100-day run. 

"In every film, you can't have everybody as a hero... or only as a villain," he notes. The selection involves rigorous psych evaluations to predict how contestants snap or retreat under pressure. 

The goal? Preventing a "house of cacophony" where everyone is aggressive, which Negi warns simply "doesn't work" for the viewer.

"This show is a social experiment that feeds into a very basic, voyeuristic instinct, the love of being a fly on the wall, and that remains true regardless of geography or nationality or timing," he says.