Big Brother 1 (Croatia)

The first Croatian season of Big Brother ran for 100 days, starting on 18 September 2004 and ending on 26 December 2004. It received high ratings and proved to be one of the rare successes for RTL Televizija in its first six months on Croatian television markets.

Despite huge commercial success and becoming cultural phenomenon of its season, the first season was subjected to much criticism. Andrija Hebrang, Croatian health minister at the time, complained about contestants smoking while the programme on air, which was against Croatian laws. In response to this, later live broadcasts were time-delayed. The show also created minor controversy due to a single homophobic statement ("If I knew I had a fag friend, I would kill him. I would kill him") made by Zdravko Lamot [1] [2].

Other critics complained about lack of diversity among contestants who didn't represent the average of Croatian population. They were mostly all in mid-20s, attending college, having liberal mindset and coming from well-to-do or upper-middle class families. Another exception was Saša Tkalčević, 32-year old biker from Bjelovar, husband and father of two children. He almost immediately established himself as frontrunner, indicating that the audience for the show and pool of potential voters was much older than previously thought.

In this first season, there were 12 original housemates. Later, two new housemates entered the house.