Salman Khan, Mohanlal to Nagarjuna: Bigg Boss goes pan-India with six editions to air simultaneously from September 2026

The reality franchise will return from September, with Salman Khan, Vijay Sethupathi, Nagarjuna, Kichcha Sudeepa, Mohanlal and Sourav Ganguly leading the shows.

As the festive season draws closer, JioStar is set to make Bigg Boss bigger than ever. For the first time, six editions of the reality show, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Bangla, will launch together, bringing the franchise to audiences across the country at the same time. The new seasons will begin rolling out from September 2026 on the JioStar television network and JioHotstar.

Bigg Boss goes all out with six simultaneous editions led by Salman Khan, Mohanlal, Nagarjuna and Sourav Ganguly.

Leading the shows are familiar faces Salman Khan, Vijay Sethupathi, Nagarjuna, Kichcha Sudeepa and Mohanlal, while former Indian cricket captain Sourav Ganguly joins the Bigg Boss family as the host of the Bangla edition, adding a fresh chapter to the franchise. Marking this milestone, JioStar has also unveiled India's Bigg Reality, a first-of-its-kind coffee table book that traces Bigg Boss' two-decade journey, its cultural impact and the legacy it has built across the country.

Bigg Boss continues to grow across television and digital

According to JioStar, Bigg Boss reached over 500 million viewers in 2025 and clocked more than 438 billion viewing minutes across its six language editions. The franchise also recorded a 47 per cent year-on-year rise in engagement and worked with more than 625 brands across 46 categories, including 49 first-time advertisers.

India's Bigg Reality brings together data, audience insights and brand case studies to document how Bigg Boss has grown from a reality show into a large entertainment and marketing platform.

The book highlights how brands have moved beyond conventional product placements through tasks and in-show experiences. It points to examples such as Snack and Snack's drone delivery activation, Vaseline-themed tasks, the branded elevator and the Spy Kuttan robot, showing how companies have used the show to create stronger audience engagement.

Speaking about the milestone, Mahesh Shetty, Head – Entertainment Sales, TV, JioStar, said, "Over the last two decades, Bigg Boss has consistently reinvented itself, growing in scale, engagement and cultural relevance with every season. This festive season marks our biggest milestone yet as six editions come together across languages, making it the biggest-ever celebration of the show. The enduring strength of Bigg Boss lies in its ability to drive sustained audience participation and create shared cultural moments that translate into measurable business outcomes for brands. India’s Bigg Reality captures this journey through data and insights, offering marketers a strategic overview of how the format became a cultural phenomenon. At JioStar, we believe shows like Bigg Boss deserve to be documented, not just celebrated; and, this coffee table book spotlights these defining moments in the evolution of India’s entertainment ecosystem."

Bhaskar Ramesh, Head – Entertainment Sales, Digital, JioStar, added, "In a landscape of fragmented audience attention specifically during festive season, Bigg Boss acts as a powerful magnet, delivering unified attention at scale for three most important sale months of the year. Driven by a 47% year-on-year growth in engagement—fuelled by 24/7 live feeds, billions of votes, and live chats—the show transforms passive viewers into active participants. For brands, this deep, measurable engagement offers an unparalleled opportunity to break through the clutter, moving beyond standard media tactics to innovate where content, culture, and commerce converge."

Audience engagement remains at the heart of the franchise

The book also sheds light on how actively viewers participate in the show. During 2025, audiences cast more than 9.32 billion votes and exchanged 43 million live chats on JioHotstar. Nearly three out of four viewers interacted with the show beyond simply watching it.

The social media buzz was equally strong, with Bigg Boss generating over 1.7 billion social engagements and around 30 million user-generated memes during the year, extending conversations far beyond television.

Strong regional reach and brand impact

JioStar says Bigg Boss now reaches over 200 million viewers across Hindi-speaking markets and more than 300 million viewers in southern India, where eight out of every 10 television viewers engage with the franchise. The network also claims the show's reach is 3.5 times higher than all other reality shows in the region combined.