John de Mol: Big Brother’s daddy

Summary

Good Bad Billionaire: John de Mol – Big Brother’s Daddy

Episode Release Date: March 31, 2025

In this compelling episode of Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service, hosts Simon Jack and Zing Singh delve into the life and legacy of Johannes Hendrickus Hubert de Mol Jr., better known as John de Mol. As the mastermind behind the groundbreaking reality TV show Big Brother, de Mol’s journey from humble beginnings to billionaire status is both fascinating and controversial. The episode meticulously traces his career, explores the ethical implications of his work, and ultimately assesses whether de Mol stands as a force for good, bad, or merely another billionaire in the pantheon of global moguls.

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Introduction: The Birth of Big Brother

[01:49] Simon Jack:
“Welcome to Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service. Each episode we pick a billionaire and find out how they made their money.”

[02:04] Simon Jack:
“And that man with the idea was John de Mol. And that idea became Big Brother.”

The episode opens with the conception of Big Brother in a smoke-filled Amsterdam office in September 1997. John de Mol, alongside three colleagues, brainstorms what would become one of the most influential reality TV formats globally.

[02:32] Simon Jack:
“In 2020, Big Brother Brazil set a world record for the most public votes for a TV show when 1.5 billion votes were cast.”

This highlights the show's massive reach and enduring popularity across various international markets.

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Early Life and Career Beginnings

[02:52] Zing Singh:
“Johannes Hendrickus Hubert de Mol Jr., known as John, was born in The Hague in the Netherlands in April 1955.”

John de Mol hails from a family deeply entrenched in showbiz, with his father and grandfather both being famous musicians. Despite his family's artistic background, de Mol faced pressure to pursue a more intellectual path, leading him to excel in economics during his school years.

[06:14] Zing Singh:
“So John obviously found his niche as you have Simon, because by the time he was 23, he became the producer of the country's big weekly pop charts show.”

At a young age, de Mol launched his own production company, John de Mol Producties, navigating the challenging landscape of Dutch television by taking on diverse projects to keep his fledgling company afloat.

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Rise of Endemol: Merging Forces

[14:49] Simon Jack:
“They got along. In fact, they met for coffee every week to discuss their industry.”

In 1993, de Mol merged his company with that of Jup van der Ende, another prominent figure in Dutch television, forming Endemol. This strategic union positioned Endemol as Europe’s largest independent TV production company, setting the stage for future innovations.

[16:03] Zing Singh:
“And when Endemol floated on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange a few years later, their IPO was 18 times oversubscribed.”

The successful IPO of Endemol underscored its dominance in the television production industry, leading to significant financial growth and expansion into international markets.

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Creation and Launch of Big Brother

[17:58] Simon Jack:
“This is the moment when John de Mol is about to unleash the show that changes everything.”

De Mol's relentless pursuit of a unique reality TV format culminated in the creation of Big Brother. Facing skepticism and numerous rejections, de Mol persisted, reworking the concept until it resonated with both broadcasters and audiences.

[19:09] Simon Jack:
“Big Brother, genius.”

Despite initial doubts, de Mol's innovative approach—isolating contestants in a controlled environment and broadcasting their interactions 24/7—captured the public's imagination, leading to unprecedented viewership.

[25:09] Zing Singh:
“I do genuinely think that this is a real turning point for television, because there was reality TV before Big Brother, but, you know, that format really changed the landscape.”

The show's success not only transformed television but also spawned numerous international versions, firmly establishing de Mol as a visionary in the industry.

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Commercial Success and Legal Battles

[27:00] Zing Singh:
“And he feels like flexing his muscles. He said the US execs would have to fly to Europe for meetings with him, something that was unheard of.”

Endemol's sale to Telefonica in 2000 marked a pivotal moment, valuing the company at a staggering $5.3 billion and propelling de Mol into billionaire status. However, this acquisition coincided with the dot-com boom and subsequent crash, though it did not diminish de Mol’s newfound wealth.

[30:55] Zing Singh:
“In the year 2000, a British television company, part owned by the singer Bob Galdoff, started a legal battle with John de Mol, claiming that Big Brother stole its concept from Survivor.”

A significant legal battle ensued over the originality of Big Brother, culminating in a landmark court ruling that affirmed the protectability of TV formats as intellectual property. This victory not only solidified Endemol's legal standing but also reinforced the importance of creative ownership in the entertainment industry.

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End of Endemol and Continued Influence

[31:59] Simon Jack:
“He understood that his ideas were more important than the company that sold them. He left Endemal in 2004 and set up another production company called Talpa.”

De Mol's departure from Endemol led to the founding of Talpa, where he continued to innovate with new formats like The Voice. Despite facing personal and professional challenges, including extortion attempts, de Mol remained committed to creative development in television.

[32:51] Zing Singh:
“He recently said that developing and producing formats is something that, in his words, he'll never grow tired of.”

De Mol's enduring passion for television production underscores his relentless drive to shape the entertainment landscape.

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Evaluating John de Mol: Good, Bad, or Just Another Billionaire

In the latter part of the episode, Simon Jack and Zing Singh assess John de Mol's impact across several dimensions:

Wealth

De Mol’s wealth, estimated between $1 billion and $2 billion, is characterized by high-profile investments and luxurious expenditures, such as purchasing a private jet for $20 million to smoke privately—a move deemed extravagant even among billionaires.

[33:58] Zing Singh:
“Of a sports team. Also very billionaire behavior.”

Villainy

The hosts debate the ethical implications of de Mol’s reality TV formats, acknowledging both the entertainment value and the potential negative effects on participants’ mental health. While de Mol has been criticized for the voyeuristic nature of his shows, there have been no direct fatalities linked to Big Brother.

[35:40] Simon Jack:
“In 2022, the Dutch version of the Voice was taken off air while sexual abuse allegations against a coach and a band leader were investigated.”

These controversies contribute to a nuanced view of de Mol as a polarizing figure within the industry.

Philanthropy

De Mol's philanthropic efforts appear minimal, with limited public information regarding charitable contributions.

Power and Legacy

John de Mol's legacy in television is monumental, having revolutionized reality TV and influenced global entertainment trends. However, his influence outside the industry remains limited, with no significant involvement in politics or broader societal issues.

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Conclusion: Just Another Billionaire?

Ultimately, Simon Jack and Zing Singh conclude that John de Mol embodies aspects of both the good and the controversial. While his contributions to television are undeniable and have left an indelible mark on global media, the ethical considerations of his reality TV formats prevent a straightforward categorization.

[40:14] Simon Jack:
“I think that image that you've just put out there of a young child telling you that they just want to be famous on television maybe makes me feel a little bit icky about Big Brother more than I should.”

[40:46] Zing Singh:
“So, John de Mol, thank you for the memories. You are just another billionaire.”

In the end, de Mol is portrayed not as a clear-cut villain or hero, but as a complex figure whose innovations have reshaped television while also sparking ongoing debates about the ethics of reality entertainment.

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Upcoming Episode Preview:

The hosts tease their next episode, focusing on Markus Persson, the Swedish creator of Minecraft, promising another deep dive into the mind of a billionaire and questioning whether he is good, bad, or just another billionaire.

[41:42] Simon Jack:
“Next episode for the first time, we're talking about a video game designer.”

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Acknowledgments:

Good Bad Billionaire is produced by Mark Ward with additional production by Tamsin Curry and edited by Paul Smith. The senior podcast producer is Cat Collins, with John Minnell serving as Commissioning Editor. The team invites listeners to engage and share their feedback via email or text.

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This episode of Good Bad Billionaire offers a thorough exploration of John de Mol’s ascent in the television industry, his creation of Big Brother, and the multifaceted impact of his work. By presenting an objective analysis enriched with direct quotes and timestamps, the summary provides a comprehensive understanding of de Mol’s role in shaping modern reality TV and his standing as a billionaire.

Transcript

[Simon Jack]

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk.

[Greg Jackson]

Sometimes historic events suck, but what shouldn't suck is learning about history. I do that through storytelling. History that Doesn't Suck is a chart topping history telling podcast created by me, Professor Greg Jackson. I've been chronicling the epic story of America episode by episode, decade by decade. Original music and immersive sound design accompany us on our storytelling journey. And every episode is painstakingly researched and rooted in fact. The promise is in the title. History that Doesn't Suck.

[Zing Singh]

It's a dark, drizzly Thursday night in Amsterdam, late September 1997. Four men sit around a table in a smoke filled room. It's their office and they're still working even though it's well past midnight. Three of them are trying to help their boss, the fourth man, come up with an idea. The boss is seated at the head of the table. He's been taking notes on a yellow pad in front of him and chain smoking cigarette after cigarette smoking, stubbing them out, half smoked in the now overflowing ashtray by his pad. These men have been there for hours. They're ready to go home. They've talked about the world's first Internet cam girl, the growing presence of security cameras on the streets. Now they're talking about a failed experiment in the US that tried to see if a group of people could survive for a year in an isolated plastic dome. The conversation is going nowhere. Or is it? The boss has stopped taking notes and started grinning. He's had an idea. What if you put a bunch of strangers in a closed environment and filmed them 24 hours a day, set them tasks and give them prizes? Could that be a TV show?

[Simon Jack]

Welcome to Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service. Each episode we pick a billionaire and find out how they made their money.

[Zing Singh]

And then we judge them. Are they good, bad or just another billion billionaire?

[Simon Jack]

I'm Simon Jack, the BBC's business editor.

[Zing Singh]

And I'm Zing Singh. I'm a journalist, author and podcaster.

[Simon Jack]

And that man with the idea was John D'Amore. And that idea became Big Brother.

[Zing Singh]

And that is a TV show that really did change the face of television and celebrity, I think.

[Simon Jack]

Yeah. It's run for over 550 seasons across more than 70 territories, has been watched by billions.

[Zing Singh]

In 2020, Big Brother Brazil set a world record for the most public votes for a TV show when 1.5 billion vot votes were cast.

[Simon Jack]

Incredible. Now, John de Moll has had other hits including Deal or no Deal and.

[Zing Singh]

The Voice, but he is a divisive figure, especially in his homeland, where he's been called the king of trash tv.

[Simon Jack]

He says he couldn't care less what people call him. And why should he? His shows have made him very rich indeed. He's now worth around US$1.7 billion.

[Zing Singh]

So let's go right back to the beginning of John Demo's story. Johannes Hendrickus Hubert de Mo Jr. Known as John, was born in the Hague in the Netherlands in April 1955. Now, that junior part is important back in his homeland because his father is also called John de Moe and he's also famous. He was a crooner, you know, he got sometimes referred to as the Dutch Frank Sinatra.

[Simon Jack]

And his grandfather, John de Mole Sr, was another famous musician. He'd been a band leader.

[Zing Singh]

So let's put it this way, showbiz is definitely in the family. John's younger sister Linda would also become famous as a TV presenter. But John and Linda's dad didn't actually want his kids to follow him into show business. And he was always critical of his son. He said that he actually wanted an intellectual in the family, but that John never was a reader and that, in his words, he still isn't.

[Simon Jack]

We've come across that before. Not being able to please your parents, feeling that you were never quite good enough for them. Maybe that's an important ingredient. In his teens, young John himself wanted to be a soccer player. He even trained with the legendary Amsterdam team Ajax. But even then, he was never good enough for his dad. When his son scored a goal, he would say, why not two?

[Zing Singh]

To be honest, John wasn't good enough for Ajax either, and he was never going to make it professional.

[Simon Jack]

But John did excel in economics at school. One of his teachers apparently explained this was because John understood this. The basic ground rule of business how to achieve the most with minimal effort.

[Zing Singh]

That's quite an interesting philosophy.

[Simon Jack]

I don't think that is a basic ground rule of business, but I mean, everyone wants to do as well as they can whilst expending as little effort as possible. But I don't think you could say that most of our billionaires have expended minimal effort.

[Zing Singh]

Yeah, it's not something you pick up at Stanford Business School. But having said that, there is a great example of this from his youth. After John got his granddad to pay him to wash his car, he rang the doorbell, showed the shining, gleaming car and took the money. But he had, crucially, only washed one side of it.

[Simon Jack]

That truth is going to come out at some point, isn't It. I wonder, I mean, minimal effort. But the point is, if you do that, you're only getting that job once, aren't you?

[Zing Singh]

Yeah, but it does also seem to suggest someone who's really happy with playing on the shiny surface level of things.

[Simon Jack]

Maybe. Let's see how the story progresses. By the time John was 15, his father had retired from singing and was managing a pirate radio station. He gave John his first real job, tidying away records that DJs had played.

[Zing Singh]

John loved the immediacy of live radio. He became a full timer there. He did various jobs and to be honest, he might have had this whole other career in radio. But in 1974, the Dutch government shut down the pirate stations and John moved into tv.

[Simon Jack]

And he was still a teenager when he started at one of Holland's public broadcasters, as in his words, the assistant of the assistant of the assistant producer. At first he hated working in television, but before a big national broadcast, he started feeling a strange, tingling nervousness, butterflies in his stomach, and he realized that in 10 minutes time, 5 million people would be watching. And that's when the fever started. He says, I can relate to that. I remember the first time I was on breakfast TV and you know that millions of people are going to be watching it as they're making their sandwiches or getting their kids ready for school and you think, oh, my goodness me, you can only see the cameras there. But you do have a little bit of butterflies because you know that you're going to be beamed into people's homes. So I relate to that a bit.

[Zing Singh]

So John obviously found his niche as you have Simon, because by the time he was 23, he became the producer of the country's big weekly pop charts show.

[Simon Jack]

Colleagues described him as shy but determined. He thought they were all old, they were in their 40s and 50s, and he wasn't hanging around to become one of them. So in 1979, he started his own TV production company, John Demol Producties, with investment from a DJ and entrepreneur he'd known since his teens.

[Zing Singh]

Now, he definitely already had a lot of connections, but maybe the most important of them all was his wife. So John had started dating a singer and an actress called Wilkie Oberty when he was 19, and they'd gotten married two years later. Now Wilkie was already a big celebrity in the Netherlands and she was 10 years older than him.

[Simon Jack]

So she broadened his contacts book, but also gave him a drive to succeed. Having expected John to become a kept man living off Wilkie's wealth, his father noticed him immediately trying to prove that he could be the breadwinner.

[Zing Singh]

But in the early 80s, John really struggled. He couldn't get commissions with his new company because independent TV productions were quite rare in the Netherlands at the time. Most channels were just using their own in house production teams. So John would take literally any job he could to keep the company afloat. He was filming kickboxing, commercials, he was even doing weddings.

[Simon Jack]

And he got the occasional one off commission. But even then he'd have to do things on the cheap. In his book Billion Dollar Game, the TV executive Peter Bazalgette claims that John Damol would sometimes sneak into the unguarded editing suites of the public broadcasters, edit his programs on their expensive kit and then sneak out again without paying a thing.

[Zing Singh]

But still, John was soon pretty near bankruptcy. What he really needed was a big.

[Simon Jack]

Series commission worth looking at the business model for TV production. That's where the money is in getting those commissions. You really start to make a profit as a TV producer when you start making lots of episodes of the. You get those economies of scale.

[Zing Singh]

And there was about to be a new commissioner who would need independent productions to fill their schedules. A name that might be familiar to people in the uk. That is sky tv, yeah.

[Simon Jack]

Owned by one Rupert Murdoch. By the way, he's another of our billionaires. In the 1980s, Rupert Murdoch was launching Sky TV channels across Europe. You used to have to get a satellite dish to tune into them. And John de Moll was soon getting commissions because they had to fill up these new channels with content.

[Zing Singh]

All this airtime and nothing to fill them with. But importantly, John de Mole didn't any money to actually make these programs. So he turned to yet another contact, a famous Dutch DJ who now ran a successful music publishing company. And he sold him 50% of his production company for around half a million dollars.

[Simon Jack]

So that means the half he had left was also by that measure worth half a million. So he's on his way to our first milestone. A million. One of his first shows was a daily music show presented by a cat puppet. And yet another of his contacts, his sister Linda Dumol.

[Zing Singh]

So if this all sounds a little bit too much like nepotism, it should be said that when John first hired Linda, he was worried it would seem that way too. So he sent tapes of three auditions to commissioners without mentioning that one of them was of his sister. And he only told them after she got the job. And Linda has since gone on to great success. So sort of nepotism, but not quite.

[Simon Jack]

I wonder what would happen if they hadn't picked her? History does not relate. But John's next big idea was buying the licenses to make Dutch and Belgian versions of successful American formats like Feud and Wheel of Fortune. So he would pay the US creators of those TV shows to make local versions of their formats. They would have the same setup be made in studios that look the same, with similar hosts and questions, the same number of contestants, things like that. The restrictions when licensing formats are really strict. Once you buy the program, you have to stick to exactly the same style and rules of the original. And this is interesting. So he'd been on the other end of the whole licensing show business, so he knew what the rules of the road were.

[Zing Singh]

But when John Demo got the license to make the prices right for Dutch audiences, he thought the format was quite tired. He decided to add new games. The American producers refused to let him, but he just did it anyway. And once the show was a hit, the US producers just had to agree to accept the changes. So he's definitely a break things apologize later.

[Simon Jack]

Well, also, that's very interesting. This will come up later in the story. This format is a bit tired. It's not quite working. Let's make a few changes. Let's make it better, let's make it more engaging for audiences, and we'll see that coming. Come up later.

[Zing Singh]

Yeah, let's give it a quick refresh.

[Simon Jack]

So D'Amore was making money from doing US formats, but he realized the real cash would come from creating his own formats from scratch. His first original format allowed members of the public to ask questions of celebrities. Its name translated as the shirt from your body. A Dutch phrase about being interrogated. Interesting that right at the start, he was using members of the public in his shows. Something we'll see him return to again and again.

[Zing Singh]

But unusually, his first really successful show was actually a drama. He started producing a medical soap opera called Medical Center west in 1988. It was actually filmed really cheaply on the empty floor of a working hospital, and it went out on the public service channel De Mole used to work for.

[Simon Jack]

But cheap though it may have been, the show was considered pretty groundbreaking in its day. De Mole purposely covered controversial topics like abortion, euthanasia, as he knew that would generate press coverage. The euthanasia storyline sparked national debate in the Netherlands, and the country later became the first to legalize assisted suicide.

[Zing Singh]

So really not a guy afraid of controversy. And the show was a massive hit. It got up to 4 million viewers in a country where the population was less than 15 million. So that's quite a lot. And also it's sold in other territories like Germany and South Africa.

[Simon Jack]

He followed this up with another hit. This one went out on the first Dutch commercial network which launched in 1989. So, adverts, et cetera.

[Zing Singh]

And this show was much more like what we'd come to know as John Demo's later hit. So it was called all youl Need Is Love and it featured members of the public declaring their love for each other in different extravagant ways.

[Simon Jack]

But again, showing D'Amol's ability to court controversy for publicity. The first episode saw a gay man serenading and kissing his partner. Even in the liberal Netherlands. This was sure to generate press coverage in the 1980s, and it did. But sure enough, the show is another hit.

[Zing Singh]

So with two big hits under his belt, it's safe to say John Demole was a millionaire by the end of the 80s.

[Simon Jack]

So in TV terms, he's made it, but he's nowhere near finished.

[Zing Singh]

And he's about to start one of the biggest companies in TV history.

[Simon Jack]

So let's follow John D'Amole from A Million to a billion.

[Greg Jackson]

Sometimes historic events suck, but what shouldn't suck is learning about history. I do that through storytelling. History that Doesn't Suck is a chart topping history telling podcast created by me, Professor Greg Jackson. I've been chronicling the epic story of America episode by episode, decade by decade. Original music and immersive sound design accompany us on our storytelling journey. And every episode is painstakingly researched and rooted in fact. The promise is in the title, History that Doesn't Suck.

[Zing Singh]

At the start of the 90s, John Demole was the right guy in the right place at the right time. So the EU had just introduced laws to open member states to shows from other countries. Like a lot of things in the eu, they had to allow free trade. So companies from any member state had to be allowed to compete in the TV market in any other member state. But this only applied to other members. So it reserved the majority of airtime in Europe for European production companies. And John de Mole was running one of the few independent production companies in Europe, so he really was cashing in.

[Simon Jack]

So the taps of cash have been turned on and he's getting some. The revenue for his TV company quadrupled from $18 million in 1988 to 74 million in 1993. Just five years. And in the Netherlands, he had only one big rival, a man called Jup van Der Ender.

[Zing Singh]

Now, in many ways, Jup and John were opposites. Jup was much older than John and had started out in the refined world of opera compared to John's brash beginnings in pirate radio. And while Yoop was willing to provide luxuries because he thought his employees would do their best work if they felt comfortable and happy in the office, John thought workers only needed a table and a chair to get to work. So really a clash of two different personalities.

[Simon Jack]

But they got along. In fact, they met for coffee every week to discuss their industry. They were both annoyed at how Broad played them off against each other to keep their prices low. So in 1993 they decided to fight back. They made a plan to merge their two companies. Made sense of both of them, because while Joop's company was much bigger and more established, John's was four times as profitable. Yoop Oppa's expansion, John offered bigger profit margins on that bigger business.

[Zing Singh]

It's a win win for both. So Jup Vander Ender and John Demole combined their businesses into a new company which is now very famous, one that you might have heard of, called Endimo.

[Simon Jack]

Now I think that's a happy acc that those two names go together so well. Endermole is a brilliant name for a TV company and it just happens to be the synthesis of their two names, Ender and De Moll.

[Zing Singh]

Do you think it would have worked as well if they'd done Molende?

[Simon Jack]

No, probably think so. It's hard to know because it's such a hugely famous company now. You can't imagine a time before it really existed. But combining the two companies meant Endermall now had a total of 500 full time staff, more than 1,000 freelancers producing two and a half thousand hours of television every year. Enderm immediately the biggest independent TV production company in Europe.

[Zing Singh]

So when Endermore floated on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange a few years later, their IPO was 18 times oversubscribed. Now that meant they could have sold 18 times more shares than there were available and the price shot up. And it also meant that De Moe and vander Ende made $40 million each and the company was valued at $240 million.

[Simon Jack]

That is a big company for a media company at that stage. Now in the next few years, that price fluctuated a bit. Some missteps, not least their attempt to put the Dutch soccer league behind the paywall, meaning you have to pay to watch. That led to an outcry from the public and reportedly lost them $60 million.

[Zing Singh]

But they kept at it. They kept making hit soap operas and Game shows, along with a new kind of format that John de Moore would later call emotainment. He said these shows were putting real people on television, just like game shows have been doing for years, but just in his words, pushing it a little further. Now, one example was a show called Love Letters, where three engaged couples compet to get married in a lavish, extravagant ceremony. That was part of the show, which actually sounds quite a lot like something that might run on television channels right now.

[Simon Jack]

Actually, these emotainment shows led to Endermol expanding, but what they really wanted was a foothold in the UK market that was the biggest prize in Europe at the time.

[Zing Singh]

UK broadcasters weren't actually that keen on Endermo shows. They thought they were exploitative. They said they wouldn't work on British tv. One British executive even caught an Endermo show featuring children dressing up as pop stars. Child pornography. So, not mincing any words there, no.

[Simon Jack]

But the company had plenty of money, so they simply bought their way into the British market. They took a 50% share of broadcast communications. That's a company that made popular British shows like Changing Rooms, Ready, Steady Cook, both of which again featured members of the public key common denominator. And this is the moment when John D'Amole is about to unleash the show that changes everything. Everything.

[Zing Singh]

So we're back in that meeting room, September 1997. Demo actually kept the three other guys in the room another four hours after he had this idea. And when he finally sent them home at around 4.30am, he'd sworn them all to secrecy and was calling their plan Project X. And Demo was convinced he had something special. He kept working on it over the next week. The first version was called the Golden Cage and would involve six people staying in a luxury house for a year, constantly being given tests to try to get them to leave. And whoever stayed the longest would win $1 million.

[Simon Jack]

They planned a one hour program every day with unedited footage streamed online. Endermore colleagues worried it was a bad, unethical idea, with many, including, by the way, his sister Linda, warning it was too risky.

[Zing Singh]

But John plowed on regardless, pitching it to European broadcasters in 1998. Unfortunately, they all turned him down. Even Endermo's own British production company said the show was far too cruel, and woefully so, for the UK market, but.

[Simon Jack]

Massively underestimate the appetite we have for cruel television.

[Zing Singh]

I mean, put it this way, we love it.

[Simon Jack]

It turns out that was a big.

[Zing Singh]

Misjudgment of the British Public.

[Simon Jack]

Yeah, but it seems obvious now, but probably we should put a bit of context about how bold, how audacious this idea seemed at the time.

[Zing Singh]

So watching real people live their lives on TV wasn't new. There had been long running documentaries like the American Family and the family in the UK in the 70s that had followed normal famil everyday lives. And don't forget MTV's the Real World had started putting groups of young people in a house together, sort of manufacturing their lives and filming them all the way back in 1992.

[Simon Jack]

But de Molle's idea of isolating the house from the outside world and filming and streaming participants live to the world 24 hours a day, that was new. And making it all into a competition with one winner left at the end, that was pretty new.

[Zing Singh]

So there had been this Swedish reality TV show in 1997 called Robinson Crusoe that was actually quite similar. So that show had put 16 people on an island, with the contestants themselves voting off one member of their group at the end of every week. But the first person voted off that program had taken his own life just a month after leaving the show, which was before it had even been shown on tv. So the contestant's widow campaigned for the program to be canceled. But an internal inquiry at the channel concluded there was no proof that the suicide was due to the man's participation in the show. And they went ahead with the broadcast anyway. Now, this caused uproar in the press. The show was likened to Lord of the Flies. But it got high ratings, so it was deemed a success. And later on, the format was bought by an American network and renamed Survivor, a show that was a smash hit and is still running today.

[Simon Jack]

But when John Damore was pitching his new reality show, that controversy was still very fresh. And remember, we know that he's somebody who thinks that courting controversy is good for ratings. So he kept reworking his idea, pitching it to different channels in different countries. All the commissioners were wary. By 1999, the format had reduced down from a year to 100 days. And he had renamed it Big Brother, after, of course, the totalitarian leader in George Orwell's famous dystopian book, 1984. Big Brother who is always watching you.

[Zing Singh]

It's a much better name than the Golden Cage.

[Simon Jack]

Oh, it's so. I mean, again, I think that, you know, N. Damol's a good name. Big Brother, genius.

[Zing Singh]

It's all about branding and tv, baby. Unfortunately, De Molle was still finding the same opposition from commissioners. So he gave himself a Deadline. He wanted to link the show to the upcoming turn of the millennium. The winner would come out of the Big Brother house at midnight on the 31st of December, right at the start of 2000y2k, working backwards for that timing.

[Simon Jack]

To work, for that hundred days to work. This meant the show had to start in Sept 1999. So he had just nine months to sell Big Brother and get it on air now.

[Zing Singh]

In March, he thought he had made a deal with a German channel, but then that collapsed and then de Mole was desperate. He still, however, had total belief in this idea. So he decided to try a new strategy, one that had a lot more risk for Endermoal, but a lot more potential reward too. He went to a new youth channel in the Netherlands called Veronica. They'd already turned him down once, but this time he offered to share the financial risk with the broadcaster.

[Simon Jack]

So basically what he was saying was, instead of the usual fee for the production company to make the show, with the TV station making their money back by selling adverts, Endermoor would share the costs, but crucially also share the profits from the advertising. So that meant if Big Brother flopped, both Endermol and the channel would lose money. But if it was a success, Endermol could make way more than they usually would just by selling the format. So this was a pretty unprecedented deal in television. It was a big risk for Damol. If Big Brother flopped, Endermer share price was sure to go down.

[Zing Singh]

But with Endermoor taking more risk, that meant there was less risk for Veronica, and that clearly sold them. The channel took the bait. They agreed to buy the show.

[Simon Jack]

So in May, Damal had a deal. Endermore would put up half the six million dollar budget for half the ad revenue. But he also had four months now to get the show on air.

[Zing Singh]

So, 1999, busy year then for John demo and the mo auditions around 3,000 people to be Big Brother contestants. They have to sort the logistics of filming the show. They've got to sort the livestream. And meanwhile the newspapers are already full of speculation.

[Simon Jack]

Some are denouncing the format as voyeurism. Psychologists are warning that people will get off the rails. The Dutch Institute of Psychology officially warning people against being contestants. Nothing like being warned to not do something to make you interested. And why shouldn't I do it?

[Zing Singh]

You would think that psychologists would know that. But you can imagine John Demol looking at all this free publicity, chain smoking away, rubbing his hands of glee. I mean, he's in the show business, you know he knows how it all works.

[Simon Jack]

But not everyone at Endermoal felt the same way. That summer, their head of press doubted the show would ever even make it on air.

[Zing Singh]

And all the speculation puts even more pressure on the show and on demo.

[Simon Jack]

And just weeks before Big Brother is due to air, hardly any advertising slots have been sold. That's a big problem.

[Zing Singh]

And this matters not just for the channel, but for Endermell, because their deal depends on ad sales.

[Simon Jack]

And even Damol at this point starts having doubts. He's worrying about the deal he's done.

[Zing Singh]

Then, just two weeks before launch, a test run with 10 contestants in a makeshift house with 24 cameras, 59 microphones was a disaster. The footage was boring.

[Simon Jack]

Who would have thought? The crew thought Damol would explode, but he didn't. I think this is such a key moment here in his story. Instead, he calmly diagnosed what was wrong and tried to help the team fix it.

[Zing Singh]

He added a voiceover to give the show a narrative. And he made the diary room, which is where contestants would go and talk about their feelings, into even more of a big feature of the show. Now both these things would go on to become iconic parts of the program.

[Simon Jack]

Dear Five in the Big Brother house. And tempers are beginning to fray.

[Zing Singh]

Exactly. For those of you who did not watch British Big Brother, that is a very accurate impression of the Geordie voiceover artist who is the narrator of the show.

[Simon Jack]

And with these additions to the show, D'Amal is once again sure this time he's got a hit on his hands. In an address to starve, he says Big Brother will be for Endermol what Mickey Mouse was for Disney. Wow. Bold words. He predicts in 20 years, people will talk about two eras of television, before Big Brother and after Big Brother. And maybe he's right.

[Zing Singh]

You know what? I actually do think he's right. We will come to discuss this later, but I do genuinely think that this is a real turning point for television, because there was reality TV before Big Brother, but, you know, that format really changed the landscape. It really wouldn't be the way it is today without that show existing.

[Simon Jack]

I remember, I mean, people would talk about it the whole time. There were people who were addicted to it. Some of the characters in it became, well, they became celebrities and their lives are chronicled even after they got out of the Big Brother house. It was, of course, as we now know, a huge hit. When it launched, it had a 20% share of the Dutch audience on a channel that only usually got 3%. Soon that was up to 40%, with another 7 million visiting the web stream.

[Zing Singh]

And when the finale screened on New Year's Eve 1999, two thirds of the country's population were watching. Big Brother was more than just a hit, it was a smash.

[Simon Jack]

So now John Demol could really start making money. Just a month after the show had launched, TV execs from all over the world had already been queuing at Endermall's stand at an industry sales conference to buy the franchise. Just months after the Dutch version had finished, new versions of the show were on screens all around the world. And Damol was getting offers from networks in the us, which was and still is the biggest, richest marketplace in television.

[Zing Singh]

That's right. After 20 years of licensing US formats, he was finally going to sell something back to the Americans.

[Simon Jack]

And he feels like flexing his muscles. He said the US execs would have to fly to Europe for meetings with him, something that was unheard of. Usually he'd be the one flying to the US to pitch his wares.

[Zing Singh]

Well, the shoe is on the other foot here, because guess what? They all did exactly what John Demo demanded. One NDemo staffer said, I've never seen American TV executives jump on a plane so quick, quickly, so soon.

[Simon Jack]

A deal was done with the US network, CBS, who agreed to pay $20 million for the first season of the US version of Big Brother.

[Zing Singh]

And the incredible success of that show meant Endermeau's share price tripled by February 2000. So John Demo and his partner, Yup Van Den Ender, decided it was time to sell up and cash in. Two big companies were interested in buying them out. One offered more money, but the other was more international. So they owned companies across Latin America. And that meant they could open doors for Endermo in territories.

[Simon Jack]

Interesting timing, you know, cash in a bit. At the moment of maximum hype and publicity, you're never going to probably ever make another TV show as impactful as that. So maybe this is the time to do it all. The senior management of Endermol met at John's house to consider these bids. He laid on an enormous vat of caviar and there were expensive bottles of chills wine. But the decision was really all down to John and Yoop. And as John was going to stay on as creative director while Yoop was getting out of the TV business, Yoop told John he could do whatever he wanted. It's up to you, you mate.

[Zing Singh]

So John picked the company that would open doors, Telefonica he knew it was only a matter of time before companies across the world would be copying Endermore's ideas. So he figured they'd be there first to copy themselves.

[Simon Jack]

Plus, Telefonica were going to take Endermore off the stock market, like, buy all the shares, take it private with no obligation to shareholders. John liked that idea, too. When you've got shareholders, a public company, there's a lot of transparency. You have to answer to those shareholders. If it's a private company, you can kind of be left to your end of devices.

[Zing Singh]

Plus, it's not like this deal wasn't still enormous, right?

[Simon Jack]

Exactly. Telefonica was offering $5.3 billion for Ender Mole, three times more than any production company had ever been valued at before. It meant that John and Yoop were going to pocket over a billion dollars each.

[Zing Singh]

I feel like if anybody who works in TV is listening to this episode now, their eyes are going as big as saucers at the amount of money being talked about.

[Simon Jack]

Last of the good old days.

[Zing Singh]

I mean, the executives put on a vat of caviar rather than pizzas.

[Simon Jack]

Yeah.

[Zing Singh]

So even so, right? When he announced his choice to sell to Telefonica, colleagues noticed tears in John DeMeo's eyes.

[Simon Jack]

Give me a break.

[Zing Singh]

But you know, actually on the day the deal was going to be signed, he actually threatened to cancel the whole thing because the papers were late arriving. But when they finally did, him and Yoop signed.

[Simon Jack]

And just to sort of put this in Context, it was March 2000. This was the height of the dot com boom. The NASDAQ would peak just seven days after the sale, and soon after that, it would crash. But none of that mattered to John D'Amole, because Big Brother had just made him a billionaire. So where's. He's gone from there. He's a billionaire now.

[Zing Singh]

What? So the early 2000s saw Big Brothers spread across the world like wildfire. And also, don't forget, Endermoor also had more hits of its own.

[Simon Jack]

Yeah. Deal on. A deal sold to 84 different countries or territories. Fear Factored actually started in the Netherlands before Big Brother, but only sold internationally after the success of Big Brother actually became really big in the US where it boosted the celebrity of one contestant called Joe Rogan, who has since gone on to have quite a successful podcast.

[Zing Singh]

Fear Factor challenged members of the public to perform tasks that disgusted them or scared them. You know, things like eating pizza made of cow bile crust, coagulated blood paste, rotten cheese, and fish eyes. Being buried in a coffin. With Live worms. I remember watching that. And alongside Big Brother, it really cemented John De reputation as the king of trash tv. And like Big Brother, it can be seen as a precursor to a lot of today's reality tv.

[Simon Jack]

There was, though, another company that claimed they started it all.

[Zing Singh]

In the year 2000, a British television company, part owned by the singer Bob Galdoff, started a legal battle with John Demo, claiming that Big Brother stole its concept from Survivor. Remember that kind of shipwrecked contestant show that was originally called Robinson Crusade? So. So they sued John Demo in an Amsterdam court for theft of format.

[Simon Jack]

But after five years, the courts ruled in Endermeal's favour. But the case was considered groundbreaking because it established that TV formats can be creative works protected by copyright law.

[Zing Singh]

So it sort of confirmed this idea that IP intellectual property is all important in the TV industry. And it also made his former ideas, I think, seem even more valuable.

[Simon Jack]

Yeah, there's an old thing. You can't copyright an idea, but if you actually sort of turn that idea into something that you can put on paper like a format and say it does this and this and this and this, that is more than an idea. That's a thing.

[Zing Singh]

That's kind of property. Like a house.

[Simon Jack]

Exactly. So once you turn it into a thing, it does have some legal protection.

[Zing Singh]

So this was like a double win for John de Moll, right?

[Simon Jack]

Yeah, exactly. He understood that his ideas were more important than the company that sold them. He left Endermell in 2004 and set up another production company called Talpa.

[Zing Singh]

And it was at Taupa that John Damol came up with another huge hit, which you also probably have heard of. The Voice now, that premiered on Dutch TV and has since sold all over the world. I mean, he is very good at.

[Simon Jack]

Television and he's made some big deals since, including buying back part of Endermall and selling Talper to ITV in the UK for $500 million. In 2015, Damol revealed that extortion attempts were behind the selling of his company, Talpa Media. He said issues in my personal life, including extortion, that went on for more than a year. Absol had an impact. You have to realize this was the fifth time this had happened to me and my family. But D'Amol's main focus as he enters his 70s is still actually on the creative side of the TV business.

[Zing Singh]

Yeah. He recently said that developing and producing formats is something that, in his words, he'll never grow tired of. So let's get on with our format. And judge John demole.

[Simon Jack]

Is he good, bad, or just another billion? This is where we judge them on a number of categories, from naught to 10. And we start with just their wealth.

[Zing Singh]

John Demore's wealth has hovered between 1 billion and 2 billion since becoming a billionaire.

[Simon Jack]

So he's entry level billionaire between one and two. But we also look at sometimes how they spend it. And after he became a billionaire or soon after, he paid $20 million for a private jet, mostly, apparently so he could smoke on his flights after smoking was fully banned on commercial airlines in 2000. Now, smoking is expensive as it is, but $20 million so you can smoke. That's. That's a big price ticket.

[Zing Singh]

I have to say, I'm not a fan of private jets, but I do think that if you're going to buy one just to smoke in, that is quite a baller move. That's quite a billionaire baller move.

[Simon Jack]

And in 2003, he bought a 1/30, 3.4% share in Manchester United football club, which he has since sold, buying part.

[Zing Singh]

Of a sports team. Also very billionaire behavior.

[Simon Jack]

We've certainly come across that before on this show.

[Zing Singh]

But I will say, I think, you know, as you point out, he is just an entry level billionaire billionaire.

[Simon Jack]

Yeah. And his investments have been quite private. In 2000, he created something called Certi Investments to manage his finances, which invested in, guess what, television companies, but also the Dutch sports car company Spyker Cars. They make kind of these limited edition supercars.

[Zing Singh]

I'm sure he's got a supercar or two in his garage.

[Simon Jack]

So what do we give him for wealth? Not just about absolute, but how he spends it. So 1 to 2 billion is entry level. That's about up 2, but Private Jeff, private jet, football team, sports car company. I'm gonna give him a five.

[Zing Singh]

Oh, I think I'm gonna go lower than that. I feel like a private jet is just par for course when you're a billionaire these days.

[Simon Jack]

Okay, so maybe you've talked me down to four. What are you gonna give him?

[Zing Singh]

I'm gonna give him a 3 out of 10.

[Simon Jack]

Okay, 4 and 3 villainy. What has he done to get to the top? And one of the key criticisms, of course, of reality television is the impact it has on the people who take part. And John D'Mole's view on this, he said in 2003, if I created a show with 10 plane and nine parachutes and I stalled the plane out at 20,000ft, I would get thousands of people to volunteer for that show. Tomorrow. I would never do that. There is a line in my head, but let's face it, there's a big difference between where that line is today and where it was 25 years ago. Basically, the line for what is trash has definitely moved a little bit.

[Zing Singh]

Right. Okay. Now I think it's important to say, though, that while some former Big Brother contestants have had struggles with their mental health and been hospitalized following their appearance on the show, there have been no deaths linked directly to Big Brother appearances to date.

[Simon Jack]

In 2022, the Dutch version of the Voice was taken off air while sexual abuse allegations against a coach and a band leader were investigated. De Molle apologized on behalf of the company, but was thought to suggest that women as well as men had lessons to learn. But a group of female employees took out a full page advert in a Dutch newspaper castigating him, saying, dear John, it's not the women who are the now.

[Zing Singh]

Damal said he wasn't aware of the abuse allegations and only aware of one complaint during his time as executive producer on the show. One coach so far has been sentenced to two years in jail for rape. Another case has since been dropped.

[Simon Jack]

And Damol has long been a contentious figure in Holland. There's a culture of distrust of billionaires in Holland.

[Zing Singh]

I think so much of how you feel about how villainous he is depends on how you feel about the formats he's created and the impact they've had in society. Yeah, I go back and forth on how I feel about reality TV. I think if you talked to me about this 10 years ago, I'd have gone terrible. Absolutely awful for society. Just a bad development for human morality. It's a 10 out of 10 for me on the villainy scale. But actually, I think I've kind of moderated my condemnation of reality TV so far just because I think it just fed this impulse in humans to watch other people doing things. And even if you look at shows on reality TV now, they brought a lot of entertainment and joy to people's lives.

[Simon Jack]

Yeah, I think in terms of villainy, he's a TV exec who hit upon a great idea, proved controversial, got lots of publicity. There it is. So I'm going to say for villainy, I'm going to give him, you know, not very much. I mean, a two or a three.

[Zing Singh]

Yeah, I mean, controversial as the show was in its heyday, and it was very controversial, it wouldn't have been controversial if people weren't watching it. So, yeah, I would give him a 2 out of 10.

[Simon Jack]

Yeah, I'm going to give him a 2 out of for villainy.

[Zing Singh]

2 out of 10 for both of us. Now, what about philanthropy? Giving back.

[Simon Jack]

Not much to go on.

[Zing Singh]

Not much to go on. You know, there actually isn't that much information about the kind of money John demore has given to charity. I mean, he often promotes schemes to help TV producers develop and sell ideas, but that's about it.

[Simon Jack]

Giving back. Listen, he's got a question mark. Probably zero.

[Zing Singh]

Yeah, I would give him a zero for this. He really hasn't done. He hasn't redeemed himself here.

[Simon Jack]

Power. Two ways of looking at this. This is sort of, you know, big picture politics. Have they changed the world? Whatever. And there's power within their own industry. Within their own industry. You know, power and legacy certainly left an indelible imprint on television forever, but doesn't dabble that much in politics. He's not a, you know, he's not like kind of Rupert Murdoch type character.

[Zing Singh]

No. He hasn't publicly talked about politics. Nowhere that we can see. He's not made any donations to political candidates or parties. So he's really kept himself out of that sphere.

[Simon Jack]

So score's low on that one. But I mean, in terms of tv. An absolute colossus.

[Zing Singh]

Yeah. I mean, if you worked in TV and you got a call and someone said, it's John de Mole for you, you would pick up. You certainly would 100% pick up.

[Simon Jack]

He'd be 10 in terms of legacy in the TV industry, almost zero in terms of big picture politics. So I'm gonna go straight down the middle and give him a five.

[Zing Singh]

Oh, I see. I would give him more than that just because I think the legacy of Big Brother is enormous. Right. This idea that ordinary people can become celebrities.

[Simon Jack]

Andy Warhol thought about that 40, 50.

[Zing Singh]

Years ago, but he didn't gamify it. He didn't turn it into a context.

[Simon Jack]

He didn't turn it into a format.

[Zing Singh]

Yeah, he didn't turn it into a format. And I think, really, when you think about it, that whole idea that TV just runs on formats these days.

[Simon Jack]

Yeah.

[Zing Singh]

I actually think you could attribute that to John Damol.

[Simon Jack]

Okay.

[Zing Singh]

Our darkest urges or our most positive ones.

[Simon Jack]

Okay. Okay.

[Zing Singh]

Sometimes Big Brother could be uplifting.

[Simon Jack]

Okay, five for me. What's it for you?

[Zing Singh]

I'm gonna give him a 6 out of 10.

[Simon Jack]

Okay. And then we have to decide whether he's good, bad, or just another billionaire. This is where we should dig into, you know, whether this has had a corrosive impact on society and people's Mental health. Look, he's not a drug dealer, which we've done on this program, so he's definitely not in that category. But what I do think he's a participant in is when I sometimes go and interview young kids and whatever, when we're talking about what do you want to do as a job in my job as a financial journalist, the idea they want to be just on TV or an influencer. I do think that I've got problems with that.

[Zing Singh]

Right. I don't know, maybe I look back on the golden age of Big Brother with rose tinted glasses, and I think there have been so many moments now that are just part of British cultural life that have come from Big Brother that I can't help but feel a little bit more fondly than I should towards John de Mole.

[Simon Jack]

It depends whether you consider those golden moments of TV history or really embarrassing ones.

[Zing Singh]

Maybe I just have very low standards.

[Simon Jack]

I think that I'm gonna just say I can't make my mind up about this. So I'm gonna say he's another billionaire.

[Zing Singh]

I think maybe for once you may have swayed me because I think that image that you've just put out there of a young child telling you that they just want to be famous on television maybe makes me feel a little bit icky about Big Brother more than I should.

[Simon Jack]

Okay, so you're gonna go watch I.

[Zing Singh]

Was gonna go good billionaire for all the golden moments of television that John D'Amore has given us, but maybe I'm gonna downgrade that to just another billionaire. I think that's the first time you've convinced me.

[Simon Jack]

Second.

[Zing Singh]

Second.

[Simon Jack]

You've convinced me about four or five times, and I've convinced you about only twice now.

[Zing Singh]

So I like how you're keeping scrolling.

[Simon Jack]

I am keeping tabs on it. So, John de Mole, thank you for the memories. You are just another billionaire.

[Zing Singh]

You've got to do the Big Brother voice now.

[Simon Jack]

To the end of the podcast. John Demol, you have to leave. Good, bad billionaire. Yeah.

[Zing Singh]

Simon, did you know this is our 50th episode?

[Simon Jack]

You are kidding me. I'll ghost 50 episodes. Blimey, it's gone in a flash.

[Zing Singh]

Yeah. Unfortunately, 50 episodes later, neither of us are any close to being billionaires.

[Simon Jack]

That's too bad. But we've had some incredible stories along the way, and hopefully we'll do 50 more.

[Zing Singh]

And we want to thank all our listeners. You guys have been with us from the very start, and now you know exactly how to make a billion. And hopefully you'll be much better at it than me and Simon have been.

[Simon Jack]

And we're not finished yet. Who have we got?

[Zing Singh]

Next episode for the first time, we're talking about a video game designer.

[Simon Jack]

Yep, we're talking about Markus Persson, the Swedish coding Stephen King, who programmed the world's most successful game, Minecraft, all by himself.

[Zing Singh]

He made a billion. But is he good, bad or just another billionaire?

[Simon Jack]

Good Bad Billionaire is a BBC World Service podcast. It's produced by Mark Ward with additional production by Tamsin Curry. Paul Smith is the editor and it's a BBC Studios audio production for the BBC Ward Service.

[Zing Singh]

The senior podcast producer is Cat Collins and the Commissioning Editor is John Minnell. And if you enjoyed it, do tell a friend.

[Greg Jackson]

Sometimes historic events suck, but what shouldn't suck is learning about history. I do that through storytelling. History that Doesn't Suck is a chart topping history telling podcast created by me, Professor Greg Jackson. I've been chronicling the epic stories of America episode by episode, decade by decade. Original music and immersive sound design accompany us on our storytelling journey, and every episode is painstakingly researched and rooted in fact. The promise is in the title, History that Doesn't Suck.