Row over Russian 'Big Brother'

Alex Jolig was one of the contestants in the German version of the show.

By Aysha Iqbal

LONDON, England (CNN) -- The creators of the popular Big Brother television series are considering taking legal action against what they say is a copy cat-style show broadcast in Russia.

A spokeswoman for Endemol, based in the Netherlands, said "Za Steklom" or "Behind the Glass," was very similar to the original version of the programme broadcast elsewhere.

Suzanna Cordez said: "The Russian version is similar to Big Brother. It is very difficult to protect your format from copy-cats around the world.

"We are already in the process of taking legal action against an imitation version that has been showing in Mexico and are currently thinking what to do about the Russian version."

The director of Za Steklom, who has kept his identity secret, told The Moscow Times newspaper that the idea for the show came to him 12 years ago when reading Yevgeny Zamyatin's futuristic novel, "We."

The makers of the show, speaking in the Russian press, have branded the British and other foreign versions as boring, and say theirs is more exciting.

A group of people are watched and videotaped 24 hours a day in a small apartment, and an edited version is broadcast on Russia's TV 6. Viewers vote out contestants gradually over the course of a month. The final male and female survivors each win a flat in Moscow.

The show also has a Web site where fans can watch live footage from the flat throughout the day. The contestants are living in an apartment inside a hotel in Red Square. Fans can go to the hotel and watch the contestants through a one-way mirror.

Sexual intrigue and raunchy incidents have led to criticism in the Russian press.

Cameras are allowed to follow the contestants into the shower and the toilet. Within the first week, viewers saw contestants Margo and Sasha washing each other while nude in a shower scene that took up most of the 20-minutes late-night broadcast.

The programme has sparked controversy in the Russian press. A front-page article of the Russian paper Izvestia branded the show "porn" and The Moskovskiye Novosti has accused the programme of having "no limits."