Talks between Channel 5 and Endemol over the rights to Big Brother have reportedly broken down, with the channel's owner Richard Desmond ready to switch to alternate targets.
Last month, it emerged that Desmond was in negotiations with Endemol about securing the hit reality show, which recently finished its final series on Channel 4.
However, the discussions are understood to have stalled before any deal could be agreed, reports The Guardian.
A source with knowledge of the situation said: "The deal was quite far down the track, it was virtually agreed and then the negotiations went cold."
According to another source, Channel 5 is now in talks with Big Brother co-creator John De Mol about a new observational entertainment format, called The Golden Cage.
The Golden Cage was the original concept for what eventually became Big Brother, which De Mol co-created with Paul Römer in the late 1990s.
De Mol's Talpa Media has revived the name for a different reality TV format that involves ten contestants living the millionaire lifestyle in a luxury villa.
The show - which ran for 18 months on Dutch TV - does not feature any nominations or voting, but contestants are evicted for behaviour deemed unacceptable by the programme's producers. Like Big Brother, the last remaining contestant wins a big cash prize.
The source said that it is unlikely Channel 5 would commission both formats and so the Big Brother deal may now be dead.
"Channel 4 comprehensively ended Big Brother, the timing of the deal should have been done on the day it was finally done on Channel 4 for publicity purposes," said the source. "But as far as I understand it, negotiations failed."
Desmond has pledged to invest £1.5 billion over the next five years in programming to help Channel 5 "go toe-to-toe with the biggest players in the TV world".
Over the next few months, he is expected to announce up to five major new programming commissions to boost Channel 5's audience share into 2011.
Phew, what a relief!
