BBC News Online: Entertainment: TV and Radio

Greeks protest against Big Brother

The Greek demonstration follows protests in France

They threw eggs and rubbish at the studios of the Antenna television station in Athens but riot police prevented the demonstrators from entering the building.

Twelve contestants are set to spend 112 days together in a house filled with cameras while viewers monitor their progress and vote them out of the house one by one.

The last person to leave the house will receive a cash prize of 50m drachmas (£90,000).

Profit

The demonstrators included anti-globalisation activists such as members of the Genoa 2001 protest.

One demonstrator, Kostas Sarris, told reporters: "The basic problem is that it basically violates the private life of people in the name of profit.

"It puts a big eye into the lives of people."

There were no arrests or injuries and there appears to have been no damage to the studios.

'Human values'

The Greek edition of the Big Brother programme has already encountered opposition from the Athens Journalists' Union, which earlier this year threatened to discipline any of its members who took part in the show's production.

The union has said that the programme is "aimed at the erosion of human values".

Big Brother, which started on Dutch television in 1999, has inspired a host of other reality TV shows around the world.

France's version of the show, called Loft Story, sparked similar controversy some months ago when hundreds of demonstrators left their rubbish outside the TV station in protest.