Non-Reality TV: Donor Show Hoax

A
Dutch TV contest which purported to show a dying woman choose a patient
to receive her kidneys was a hoax.

The "donor" in the show was in fact an actress - though the three
people vying for an organ were real patients in need of a kidney
transplant.

The three knew that The Big Donor Show, which aired on Friday, was
not real. The producers say it was made to highlight the shortage of
Dutch donors.

Before the hoax was revealed, the show had attracted widespread criticism.

"We are not giving away a kidney here, that is going too far even
for us," presenter Patrick Lodiers said at the moment when the fake
donor was apparently about to reveal her choice of patient.

Dutch broadcaster BNN plans to air a television show next week where a terminally ill woman will decide who out of three young patients will get her kidney, Dutch media said on Saturday.

Viewers will be able to advise the 37-year-old woman, known as Lisa, via SMS which of the candidates to pick, the Algemeen Dagblad newspaper said. The show is scheduled for next Friday in a prime-time spot.

BNN, whose former director died from kidney failure and spent years on a waiting list for a kidney transplant, told the Algemeen Dagblad that the show is meant to highlight the acute shortage of donors in The Netherlands.

The show is produced by Endemol, the Dutch entertainment powerhouse that invented the Big Brother television show in 1999.

Several transplant patient organisations and politicians have objected to The Big Donor Show.

"This is going in the direction of selling organs," a spokesperson for the Dutch Transplant Foundation told Algemeen Dagblad.

A Christian Democrat MP on Saturday called on the Dutch ministers of healthcare and culture to stop the show.