Controversy & criticism

Altina's secret leaked on social networks because of a photo someone had found in her Facebook account. After this thing it is supposed that the production took care to shut down all of the housemates' personal profiles and accounts. However, there were still fan pages administrated by the housemates' relatives that posted photos.

After two weeks the show had started there were rumors that two of the housemates: Anaidi and Joana were in a relationship out the house and that they knew each other.^[1] However, in an exclusive interview for Bluetooth Magazine, Rezart Aga, the producer of the show said that the housemates were picked carefully and there are no acquaintances between them.

In the Week 8 Live Show of Saturday, Arian Konomi the panelist of the show offended Xhimi by saying that he was a person without personality and then a fight erupted between these two. Arian was criticized by many journalists and people for his harsh comments towards the housemates. In the Week 9 Live Show he publicly apologized to Xhimi, the housemates and the viewers. At the same night Xhimi was evicted from the house and on an interview he said that he regrets making a joke in the house saying he had put condoms in the meal. However, this statement was a proof to the question if there are or not condoms in the house.^[2]

Since Rike entered the house in Week 8 she already knew all of the housemates' secrets. Even though, Arbana Osmani said that Rike won't tell any of the secrets to the other housemates she broke the rules on Day 60 by telling the secret of Anaidi to both Joana and Elona. Two days after this thing happened the production took on the official Facebook page of Big Brother Albania to tell that Rike doesn't know any of the secrets and so she couldn't tell any of the housemates any secret.^[3] The fans claimed that Osmani herself told that Rike already knew the secrets making this story a lot more controversial.

The day he was evicted, Xhimi posted a photo on Facebook with a caption blaming the panelist of the show, Arjan Konomi, for being the one who decided to evict him and said that the public's votes were rigged.^[4]

Critical reception

Moving to the new formula, this year Big Brother received mainly negative reviews. Many of the critics said that the new format just made the show more boring than it was. There were also rumors that the following year the production had decided to switch back to the previous and basic format of the show with a reduced number of housemates. However, there were people and fans of the show who loved the new format and said that it made the show more interesting, in a way that viewers can connect more to the housemates. The season finale was considered as one of the best finales ever in the last four years. However, there were also critiques from fans who said that what made the finale boring was the fact that for everything they had to show a video first. During the Finale there were shown almost 16 videos with a length of three to five minutes.^[5]

Viewing figures

Ratings have also been down to 20% for the first weeks of this season comparing it to the previous seasons but still during the following weeks the ratings improved and Big Brother regained its place like the winner for Saturday's night prime time. Again in the last four weeks, Big Brother suffered some of its worst ratings in six years.^[6] On Saturday, 18 May, Big Brother had to compete against the finale of Eurovision Song Contest 2013, but still managed to do good, meanwhile on Saturday, 25 May it had to compete against the finale of Champions League.^[7][8]

The Reunion Show (Post Big Brother)

The Reunion Show was held one week after the finale of the season. The day was set to be on Sunday at 22:00 CET.^[9] Before the official announcement of the day there were rumors that the show would air either on Friday or Saturday. All the housemates took part, except Altina, and there were discussions for all the fights and controversies that happened during the season.^[10]

Notes