Would Channel Four please come to the diary room?

It's the end of an era. Big Brother first appeared on British screens in the summer of 2000. I was 11. I didn't particular watch it first time round, but I knew it was happening. And then, every year for the past 10 years, every summer, it's been there.

It's ending this year. I mean, it had to, really. The format was tired and old, peaking in popularity sometime around 2004. It's the perfect example of what the first decade of the new millennium offered to television: voyeurism. For the first time, we all had the technology in our homes, offices and phones to watch 24 hours a day what someone was doing. What's more, we had the drive to watch 24 hours a day. The idea of having people Just Like Us on national TV, living in a house with strangers, that was new. Exciting. We could see them live. Every conflict, every love story, live. All the time.

The newspaper media machines were more than content to publish stories of the housemates; evictions became headlines, shoving international affairs or government politics aside. We, the public, were far more interested in the politics in the Big Brother house. Who wants to read about a stuffy bunch of white middle-class men when we can see people Just Like Us?

But they're not Just Like Us. Sure, they're human. They're going to have feelings and concerns, and so we can relate to them there. But two things come to mind:

One: who applies to be on a show like this?
Two: who do the producers want to see on a show like this?

Exhibitionists. Conflict-making. Loud. Attention-seeking. Fame-hungry.

I've heard all those things said about people in the Big Brother house. I'm not saying everyone in all the houses were all of those things all the time. But, well, they wanted to be on TV 24 hours a day for months in a row. It's not a particularly normal balanced thing, I don't think.

Still, it's coming to an end. I think it's time for TV to find something new. The Noughties were all about reality TV. What's going to be the craze for the 2010's?