TV Plays the Reality Card

Reality TV critics have predicted the genre’s demise every year for the past ten or so. True: it’s a mature concept and viewers have a seemingly insatiable desire for more edgy and competitive programming. The Big Donor Show (De Grote Donorshow) turned reality on its head…or another body part.

Since it’s humble…and crass…beginnings, reality TV (unscripted drama, to the professionals) has raised (a) hackles on the heads of critics and (b) ratings. This Dutch production aired last Friday (June 1) on private channel BNN drew fire from the usual suspects poised and ready to yelp about television, the root of all social evil.

The Dutch Prime Minister feared for his country’s reputation, the country where reality TV was invented.  

As the episode drew to a close, after the three kidney transplant seekers made their final pleas to be chosen, viewers actually voted and one contestant rejected, the show host looked deep into the camera and said “We’re not giving away a kidney here.” It was an elaborate tale, a year in the making, and all but the viewers were in on it.

An actress played the part of the terminally cancer stricken prospective organ donor. The patients, however, were not acting. “They are real kidney patients,” said the show’s host, “and their stories were deadly serious.”

The three have been on the Dutch organ donor waiting list for four years.

The press jumped on the announcement. The word most commonly used: hoax (1). No body parts would actually by chosen and taken. It’s as if viewers had been cheated.

Less reported is the story of BNN founder Bart de Graaff. In 2002, still on the donor waiting list, he died of kidney failure, age 35. Current BNN Chairman Laurens Drillich said de Graaff “would have wanted it this way.” Indeed, de Graaff’s characteristic laugh could be heard as the closing credits rolled.

BNN and Endemol are separate companies. BNN originated the Big Donor Show concept and turned it over to Endemol for production.

Charitable organizations know very well that raising money is easy compared with actually getting people to do something. The show’s producers and the broadcaster wanted to do something that would not simply raise awareness but move people to fill out and carry those organ donor cards. Here’s a commercial television program that got what it came for: body parts. According to weekend press reports, 21 thousand people got off the couch and joined the Dutch organ donor registry.

Sorry to be so crass but reality can be cruel.

The blame for childhood obesity, a social and medical problem pandemic in the West, has fallen in recent weeks on commercial television and advertising. Perhaps would-be rule makers should gather in one of those well-appointed Brussels meeting rooms, one with dozens of big screen TVs, and order up an episode of the BBC hit reality TV show “Honey, We’re Killing The Kids.”

Last year an Endemol production called Birth Night Live drew howls, lasting about two weeks, from the squeamish for showing a baby’s birth right there on the TV. Critics said that show was turning childbirth into a spectacle (2).- June 3, 2007

(1) hoax

NOUN:An act intended to deceive or trick.

(2) spectacle

NOUN:Something that can be seen or viewed, especially something of a remarkable or impressive nature.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition.  2000.

Keywords:reality, television critics

Europe’s Media Rules – From Television Without Frontiers to the Future

The Television Without Frontiers Directive is all but a memory, soon to be replaced by the Audiovisual Media Services Directive. This ftm Knowledge file details the issues, the debates and the outcome. Also included are articles on competition, product placement and cinema. 51 pages PDF (June 2007)

Free to ftm Members, others from €39

Media Measurement Moves Forward and Everywhere

Includes: mobile and internet metrics, electronic measurement systems and device descriptions, RAJAR (UK) debate, with comments. 57 pages PDF (May 2007)
Free to ftm members, others from €39
Order

Further Complicated: Advertising, Children and Television

Advertising and television face more complaints, criticism and new rules. ftm reports on the debate in Europe and North America 43 pages PDF file (March 2007)

Free to ftm members and others from €39

Order

The State of the Print Media in the World

ftm reports from the World Association of Newspapers Congresses. Includes WAN readership studies, Russian media and Russian politics, press freedom and the state of journalism. 62 pages. PDF file (October 2006)

Free to ftm members and others from €39

Order

French National Newspapers
publishers, designs, editors all change, with comments. 40 pages PDF (updated July 2006)

Free to ftm members, others from €39
Executive Summary
Order