After disappearing from Canadian television following its 12th season in 2024, Big Brother Canada is officially coming back. On June 4, 2026, Bell Media announced a new season for CTV and Crave, with Andrea Bain taking over as host and Entourage producing the series. Production is scheduled to begin in Montréal in spring 2027.
The revival is part of a broader expansion of the Big Brother brand at Bell. The company also announced an agreement with Banijay Rights to bring future seasons of Big Brother USA to Canadian audiences beginning in summer 2027, while acquiring the Canadian series’ back catalogue for Crave.
But the Canadian comeback is more than a return to the schedule. Bell is bringing the franchise back under a different production company, in a different city, and with a different host. The challenge will be to make those changes work without losing the identity and audience that made Big Brother Canada a fixture of Canadian reality television.
The Original Big Brother Canada: 12 Seasons of a Canadian Franchise
When Big Brother Canada premiered on Slice on February 27, 2013, it brought the international reality format to a Canadian cast and production. Its first houseguests were selected through coast-to-coast auditions, and the launch emphasized the diversity of contestants from across the country. The series began with two seasons on Slice before moving to Global for Season 3 in 2015.
The series ultimately ran for 12 seasons, with Arisa Cox hosting every season of the original run. In 2020, ahead of Season 9, Cox was promoted to executive producer alongside her hosting duties.
Corus said at the time that the change would give her a greater role in the show’s creative direction as the series sought to become a leader in reality television and respond to broader conversations about racism and representation.
The production itself was also closely associated with Insight Productions. During the later seasons, Big Brother Canada was commissioned by Corus and produced by Insight Productions in association with Corus and Banijay, with Cox among the executive producers.
That history matters to the revival because Bell is not simply acquiring an unused international format. It is bringing back a Canadian series that developed its own audience, production history, and on-screen identity over 12 seasons.
The 2027 edition, therefore, inherits more than the Big Brother name. It inherits a decade-plus of expectations surrounding what Big Brother Canada is supposed to look and feel like.
The First Fan-Driven Comeback
Big Brother Canada has faced an uncertain future before. After Season 5, Global placed the series on hiatus, prompting viewers to organize a campaign for its return. Fans used petitions and social media to make their case for another season.
The campaign worked. On July 20, 2017, Global announced that Big Brother Canada would return for a sixth season in 2018, explicitly attributing the decision to the “overwhelmingly powerful fan response” to the hiatus. Global executive Barbara Williams said the network had heard the fans, while Cox also publicly thanked viewers for helping bring the series back.
The result was Season 6, which premiered on Global in March 2018.
That episode became an important part of the show’s history. It demonstrated that the audience could play a visible role in keeping the Canadian edition alive when its future was uncertain.
The 2027 revival is different: this time, the series is returning because a new broadcaster has formally ordered it. But the earlier comeback provides useful context. Big Brother Canada already has a history of surviving an uncertain future and returning to television after viewers made clear that they still wanted it.
The 2024 Cancellation: Why the Original Run Ended
On June 27, 2024, Corus Entertainment announced that Big Brother Canada would not return after its 12th season. The decision ended the show’s original run on Global after more than a decade on Canadian television.
Corus did not identify a single reason for the cancellation. Instead, the company said it had considered several factors, including audience trends, available support from sponsors and advertisers, and production and licensing costs.
That distinction is important. The cancellation should not be reduced to a simple claim that the show’s ratings had fallen. Corus’s public explanation described a broader business calculation involving the size and commercial value of the audience alongside the costs of producing and licensing the series.
The cancellation also closed the chapter on the production model associated with the original run. For much of that period, Big Brother Canada was produced by Insight Productions in association with Corus and Banijay.
That leaves an obvious question hanging over the revival: what makes Big Brother Canada viable for Bell when the previous model was no longer viable for Corus?
Bell’s answer appears to begin with the economics of production.
Bell’s 2026 Revival: A New Home for Big Brother Canada
On June 4, 2026, Bell Media announced that it had ordered a new season of Big Brother Canada for CTV and Crave. The announcement formally moved the Canadian edition from its former home at Corus and Global into Bell’s television and streaming portfolio.
The new production will be handled by Entourage, the Québec-based company behind Big Brother Célébrités. The announced creative leadership includes Mathieu Ouellet as showrunner, with Eric Young and Nathalie Brigitte Bustos as executive producers and France Racine as producer. Production is scheduled to begin in Montréal in spring 2027.
That represents a substantial change from the previous production structure. The original Big Brother Canada was closely associated with Insight Productions, while the revival will be produced by a company that already operates within the Big Brother ecosystem in Québec.
Bell has also made clear that the Montréal location is part of the business strategy.
Bell Media executive Justin Stockman said the new Big Brother Canada will use the same house in Québec as Big Brother Célébrités, at a different time. He described the previous Canadian series as a costly production and said Bell had found a more efficient way to bring it back and establish it for long-term success.
That makes the revival more than a straightforward restoration of the old series. Bell is changing the production infrastructure in an effort to make the economics work differently.
The final major change is in front of the cameras. Andrea Bain, co-host of CTV’s The Social, will replace Arisa Cox as host. Bell has confirmed Bain’s appointment, while details about the new houseguests have not yet been announced.
In other words, the 2027 Big Brother Canada will retain the franchise’s name and core concept while changing several of the structures that defined its original run.
Andrea Bain: A New Host for a Familiar Franchise
The most visible change for returning viewers will be Andrea Bain.
Bain, who co-hosts CTV’s The Social, has been confirmed as the new host of Big Brother Canada, replacing Arisa Cox after all 12 seasons of the original Canadian run.
The change is significant because Cox became closely associated with the series over more than a decade. She was not only the host but, beginning with Season 9, also an executive producer. Her expanded role gave her a documented involvement in the show’s creative direction as well as its on-screen presentation.
Bain enters the franchise with a different television background. Her work on The Social has made her a familiar face to CTV viewers, but her appointment does not, by itself, establish that Bell intends to radically change the tone or format of Big Brother Canada.
At this stage, there is no announced mandate for Bain to reinvent the franchise. What is confirmed is simpler: she will be the new on-screen face of a Canadian edition that is itself being rebuilt under a different production structure.
For longtime viewers, that creates an interesting balance. Bain has to establish her own identity as host while stepping into a role previously occupied by someone who was associated with the franchise for its entire original run.
The Live-Feeds Question
One of the changes to Big Brother Canada during its original run came before the cancellation.
For its 11th season in 2023, Corus replaced the traditional 24/7 live feeds with a new system called Digital Dailies. Rather than allowing viewers to continuously watch the house, the new approach provided selected uncut footage from inside the house.
Corus said the change was intended to prioritize the mental health and well-being of the houseguests, their families, and the production team. The company presented Digital Dailies as a way of evolving the show’s digital offering while continuing to provide viewers with additional material from the house.
Digital Dailies continued into Season 12 in 2024, with additional footage and digital extras available through the official Big Brother Canada platforms.
For 2027, Bell has not announced whether 24/7 feeds will return, whether Digital Dailies will continue, or whether Entourage will introduce another form of digital access.
That makes the live-feed question one of the most important unresolved issues surrounding the revival.
For a format built around observing people living together under constant surveillance, the amount of the house that viewers can actually see is not a minor digital feature. It affects how audiences follow alliances, conflicts, and strategy between broadcast episodes.
Until Bell announces its digital strategy, however, any prediction about the return of live feeds would be speculation.
What the Montréal Production Model Could Mean
The move to Montréal is best understood as a production and business decision rather than simply a geographic change.
Entourage, the company producing the revival, already produces Big Brother Célébrités for Québec audiences. Bell says the English-language Big Brother Canada will use the same Québec house as the French-language edition, but at a different time.
That creates an opportunity to share physical infrastructure between two productions rather than building a separate Big Brother Canada house from scratch.
Stockman specifically cited this efficiency when discussing the revival. He said the previous Big Brother Canada was a costly series and argued that the new arrangement gives Bell a smarter way to bring it back and improve its prospects for long-term success.
The model also gives Entourage direct experience with the franchise’s production requirements. Big Brother Célébrités has been running in Québec since 2021, giving the company an established production operation within the format. Bell’s announcement described the Québec edition as an established fan favourite and highlighted its recent performance on Noovo and Crave.
What remains unknown is how much of that Québec production environment will be visible in the English-language series.
Bell has not announced a new house design, the extent of Québec representation in the cast, any bilingual elements, or specific changes to the format. Those possibilities may be interesting to consider, but they should not be presented as confirmed features of the 2027 season.
What is known is more straightforward: Big Brother Canada is moving into an existing Montréal production ecosystem, and Bell believes that structure can make the series more sustainable.
Bell’s Broader Big Brother Strategy
The return of Big Brother Canada is part of a larger strategy for the franchise at Bell.
In its June 2026 announcement, Bell Media said it had reached an agreement with Banijay Rights to bring future seasons of Big Brother USA to Canadian audiences beginning in summer 2027. The company also announced the acquisition of the Canadian series’ back catalogue, with all 12 seasons set to be available on Crave.
That gives Bell three complementary pieces of the Big Brother brand: the returning English-language Canadian edition, future U.S. seasons, and the existing French-language Big Brother Célébrités.
The Québec edition is already an established part of Bell’s broader streaming strategy. Bell said Season 6 of Big Brother Célébrités was the No. 1 original reality series in Québec during Winter 2026 and the most-streamed French-language show on Crave during that period, with nearly 4.7 million views across Crave and Noovo.ca combined. Those are figures supplied by Bell, so they are best understood as Bell’s reported platform-performance measurements rather than an independent industry ranking.
The commercial logic is therefore fairly clear. Bell can use an established international format across multiple Canadian platforms, pair the new English-language edition with an existing French-language production, and give the U.S. version a streaming home on Crave alongside its CTV presence.
Bell has also emphasized the efficiency created by producing the English- and French-language editions in the same Québec house at different times.
None of that guarantees that the Canadian revival will become a long-running success. But it does show that Bell is approaching Big Brother Canada as part of a broader franchise strategy rather than simply bringing back an old show for nostalgia’s sake.
Wrapping Up
Big Brother Canada has survived uncertainty before. After its first major hiatus in 2017, a highly visible fan campaign helped bring the series back for a sixth season. Seven years later, however, the original 12-season run ended when Corus cancelled the show after Season 12, citing audience trends, commercial support, and production and licensing costs among the factors behind its decision.
Now Bell Media is giving the franchise another chance.
But this is not simply a restoration of the old Big Brother Canada. The broadcaster is bringing the series to CTV and Crave, replacing its former production company with Entourage, moving production to Montréal, sharing infrastructure with Big Brother Célébrités, and replacing longtime host Arisa Cox with Andrea Bain.
The broader strategy is equally ambitious. Bell is bringing future Big Brother USA seasons to Canada, adding the original Canadian series to Crave’s catalogue and positioning the returning English-language edition alongside its established Québec counterpart.
That makes the 2027 season more than a nostalgia play. Its real test will be whether Bell’s new production and distribution model can make Big Brother Canada sustainable while giving longtime viewers enough of the franchise they remember to make the revival feel authentic.
For now, the return is official, the host is confirmed, and production is headed to Montréal.
The houseguests, the house, the digital strategy, and the precise shape of the new game are still unknown.
After a three-year absence, Big Brother Canada is getting another chance. What happens inside the new house will determine whether this is simply a comeback or the beginning of a new era.