Easily one of the most successful reality shows ever made, Big Brother has lasted so long because it has millions of highly devoted fans. Big Brother viewers tend to know that legendary players once escaped the game, that Janelle Pierzina has a criminal past, and why JC Mounduix outraged viewers. On top of also knowing that Jessie Godderz inspired Chima Simone to basically quit the show, Big Brother viewers also love to debate every aspect of the show.

Over the years, fans have debated if there is a Big Brother curse, who the worst winners were, if the show is harder than The Traitors, and what the show’s worst twists ever was. Similarly, fans will likely debate whether they love or hate how Big Brother 27 is set to change the show’s longtime format.

Big Brother 27’s Format Change Means That Fans Will See More Of The Show On TV

Since Big Brother began, the hit reality show has been different from its peers in many ways. Most notably, watching every episode of Big Brother has always taken a lot more of a time commitment than other reality shows.

Fortunately for the team behind Big Brother, the shows has always had a lot of fans who seemingly can’t get enough of it. For those people who always want to see more of the action in the house on TV, Big Brother 27’s format change is likely to be exciting.

Before the upcoming season begins filming, major news about the CBS reality show was announced. That news reveals that Big Brother 27 viewers will get to see a lot more of the houseguests on TV.

In May 2025, Us Weekly published an article about what is known about Big Brother 27.

That article detailed the schedule for when Big Brother 27 episodes will air and the plans will be both familiar and new to fans.

According to Us Weekly’s Big Brother 27 article, the show will continue to air episodes on Sunday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Since episodes have aired on those days for some time now, that certainly won’t shock many fans.

However, just because the show will be airing on the days that fans have come to expect doesn’t mean that things aren’t getting mixed up. Instead, Us Weekly’s article reported that Big Brother 27’s Wednesday episodes will be 90 minutes long, instead of the traditional hour-long format.

What Is Big Brother: Unlocked?

On top of Big Brother 27 featuring longer episodes, the season will have a new spin-off premiere alongside it.

In May 2025, Global TV published an article about the new spin-off show, Big Brother: Unlocked. That article revealed that in addition to the Sunday, Wednesday, and Thursday episodes, Friday night is set to become destination viewing for Big Brother fans.

That is because it has been announced that on some Friday nights, Big Brother: Unlocked will air for an hour. However, the article also revealed that Big Brother: Unlocked is only planned to air every other week. For anyone who isn’t sure what that means, Global TV lists episodes airing on July 25th, August 8th, August 22nd, September 5th, September 19th, and September 26th.

As a part of Global TV’s article, the outlet described Big Brother: Unlocked’s format. Based on that description, Big Brother: Unlocked seems like it will be a talk show based around the reality show that will also feature more footage from inside the house.

Global TV reports that Big Brother: Unlocked will star three “All-Stars” from the show’s history and that it will feature more footage from the house. More interestingly, Big Brother: Unlocked will feature guest appearances, interviews, and “unprecedented” behind-the-scenes access into the production of Big Brother.

When Will Big Brother 27 Premiere?

Anytime news about an upcoming season of Big Brother is announced, the show’s dedicated fans want to know one thing, when they will get to watch.

As a part of Us Weekly’s aforementioned article, the outlet revealed when Big Brother 27 will premiere.

According to the outlet, Big Brother 27’s premiere will air on Thursday, July 10th, and it will be a 90-minute episode.

For anyone who doesn’t know, Big Brother 27’s premiere date is significant because it follows a landmark moment in the show’s history.

The first episode ever of Big Brother premiered on July 5th, 2000. That means that five days before Big Brother 27 premieres, it will be the 25th anniversary of Big Brother’s beginning.

When CBS announced that Wednesday night episodes of Big Brother 27 would be 90-minutes long, that wasn’t the first time the network had made a move like that. Over the last several seasons, CBS’ other reality shows, Survivor and The Amazing Race, have both featured 90-minute episodes after they previously were hour-long shows.

In February 2024, Jeff Probst told Entertainment Weekly why he thought the 90-minute Survivor episodes were perfect: “Instead of an idol hunt lasting for 90 seconds, you could let it play for four minutes. And in that extra time, you got to see inside the person, the panic, how they dealt with it, the dirt on their fingernails, and digging one more time, and here comes somebody — all of those are things that in a 60-minute episode we’d have to say, ‘We don’t have time for it. It doesn’t really matter.’ But then when you see it, you’re like, ‘Well, it does matter!’ I think 90 minutes is a great sweet spot for an episode of Survivor.”

That said, there is one huge way that Big Brother is different from Survivor and The Amazing Race. Unlike those two shows that air one episode per week, Big Brother airs on Sunday, Wednesday, and Thursday. As a result, it will be interesting to see how big of a difference having one weekly episode expanded to 90 minutes will make to Big Brother 27.