Julie Chen-Moonves Reflects on ‘Big Brother’s ‘Terrible’ First Reviews & Being in ‘Survivor’s Shadow

Kelli Boyle October 1, 2026, 6:39 pm

Host Julie Chen appears on the set of 'Big Brother Season 6' at the CBS Television Studio Center August 25, 2005 in Studio City, California. — Vince Bucci/Getty Images

What To Know

Julie Chen-Moonves recalls Big Brother‘s difficult first season in 2000, facing rumors of midseason cancellation compared to Survivor‘s success.
Chen-Moonves initially declined the hosting role out of fear that it would kill her career ambitions.
Big Brother has now aired more than 1,000 episodes. The Season 28 finale airs on Thursday, October 1.

Big Brother had a lot of pressure to perform when it first debuted on July 5, 2000, right in the middle of Survivor‘s first season. Survivor was already a hit, but Big Brother didn’t have the same success. Ahead of the Season 28 finale of Big Brother on October 1 — and after the show reached its historic 1,000th episode — host Julie Chen-Moonves looks back on the show’s “terrible” first reviews and what it was like to feel like Survivor‘s “loser 10th cousin, 15th time removed.”

Chen-Moonves didn’t want to host Big Brother at first. As she’s previously shared, the hosting gig was first offered to Meredith Vieira, who turned it down. And Chen-Moonves, who was a CBS Morning News anchor with 60 Minutes ambitions at the time, said no when they came to her next.

“I was like, ‘I want to be in 60 Minutes one day. If I do this weird reality show…Are you ever going to let me on 60 Minutes?’ And my then boss, the head of news, he goes, ‘Probably not,'” Chen-Moonves tells us. “And I said, ‘Well, thanks for your honesty. I’m not taking this job, getting on a plane for 10 weeks from New York to L.A. to kill my career dream.’ And then he said to me, ‘Technically, we could assign this to you. You work for the corporation, you work for the company, and if you turn it down… You’ve only been in the network eight months.’ He’s like, ‘We might look at this as a sign of insubordination.’ I was like, ‘What? Oh, well, let’s go on a plane to L.A. I have an open mind.’ I couldn’t turn it down. And now I love it.”

Despite her love of the long-running series, Chen-Moonves admits she “never” expected it to run this long, especially because there were rumors of an early cancellation that would stop the game in its tracks.

Jessie Godderz, Azäh Awasum, Kyland Young, Paul Abrahamian, Quinn Martin, Leah Peters, Hannah Chaddha, Felicia Cannon, Morgan Pope, Janelle Pierzina DeSanto, Julie Chen Moonves, Tiffany Mitchell, Cameron Hardin, Josh Martinez, Rachel Reilly Villegas, Derek Frazer, Xavier Prather, Brittney Haynes Godwin, Chelsie Baham, Keanu Soto, Vince Panaro, Derek Levasseur, Taylor Hale, George Boswell, Derek Frazier, Jasoon De Puy, Kaycee Clark, Cody Calafiore, Allison Grodner, Rich Meehan and Shawn Laws O’Neil at the Big Brother, 1,000th Episode Celebration on the Radford Studios Lot in Los Angeles, California - August 27, 2026. Photo: Matthew Taplinger/CBS ©2026 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Matthew Taplinger/CBS

“Season 1, because we were in the shadow of Survivor, which took over the nation, we were like the loser, 10th cousin, 15th-time removed, people hated us,” Chen-Moonves shares. “Internally at the company, externally, the critics, the reviews were terrible, and the ratings couldn’t compare, and there was buzz that we might get canceled mid-season. And I’m like, ‘Well, how does that work? It’s a live show. I just open up the door, you send everyone home?’ How do you explain that? Because back then, the live feeds were on AOL. Luckily, it didn’t happen.”

The State of Reality TV, According to Jeff Probst, Julie Chen Moonves & Phil Keoghan

The first season wasn’t without its struggles, though, even without a midseason cancellation. The memories are fresh for the host in our interview with Jeff Probst and Phil Keoghan about the state of reality TV, 26 years after it truly began. She recalls some of the biggest names in news calling her a disgrace for taking a job she was forced to accept.

“They suffered through. We all suffered through. The critics hated me. Andy Rooney hated me,” Chen-Moonves recalls. “He spoke out against [me]. He said I should be permanently shipped to L.A., and how dare I blur the lines between news and entertainment, and I should be permanently shipped to the West Coast and never come back to CBS News. But I think the network was smart enough, which is, after Season 1, they kicked out the creators that modeled it exactly after how it launched in the Netherlands. It was created in the Netherlands.”

"Season 27 Houseguests Move-In Date" -- Coverage of the CBS Original Series BIG BROTHER, scheduled to air on the CBS Television Network. Pictured: Julie Chen Moonves. Photo: Sonja Flemming/CBS ©2025 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Sonja Flemming/CBS

“Season 1, we had the viewers vote out who they didn’t like, and they voted out the most interesting players,” she goes on, “the people who may be troublemakers, controversial, they voted them out like, ‘I don’t like you.’ Then we were stuck with a bunch of dullards who were like, ‘Oh, if America wants you out.’ They hid behind that. So, we took the cards out. No cards! You’ve got to interact. You’ve got to compete. And you’ve got to vote out one of your own.”

That change, as well as the addition of the literal game-changing producers Allison Grodner and Arnold Shapiro, turned Big Brother‘s fate around. “They totally changed it and made it amazing,” says Chen-Moonves. Grodner is still an executive producer on Big Brother today, along with Rich Meehan.

Big Brother, Season 28 finale, Thursday, October 1, 8/7c, CBS