Renal-ity TV in the Netherlands

"Candidate A, what are your plans with my kidney?" It sounds almost surreal, but if the producers are to be believed, that's the sort of question contestants will have to answer in a live reality TV show that will air Friday night in the Netherlands Friday. Using a Dating Game-style format, the Big Donor Showwill invite three candidates in need of a kidney transplant to convince a woman dying of a brain tumor why they should be the lucky recipient of her kidney. As friends and relatives help make their case for the lifesaving kidney, viewers will also be able to cast their votes via text messaging.

Tasteless? Maybe, says Laurens Drillich, chairman of the BNN network, which will run the show. "But we think the truth behind it is a lot more shocking and tasteless. Every year people die in the Netherlands because there is no donor available for them. It is time to do something. This show is a first step to make people aware of this problem."

BNN, a relatively small network whose target audience is adolescents and young adults, loves to shock its audience. Among its recent shows have been an educational program featuring on-air drug use and a show profiling young people facing death from incurable diseases. The network claims it is confronting viewers with such uncomfortable topics, not for ratings, but to provoke serious debate. "We have shown in the past that we know how to deal with difficult issues like this, especially and foremost for a young audience," says Drillich.

BNN, in fact, claims firsthand experience with the shortage of donor organs. The network's founder, Bart de Graaff, died five years ago from kidney failure while on a waiting list for a transplant. Friday's show is dedicated to De Graaff, and will be punctuated with calls to the public to register as organ donors. More than a thousand people are currently on the waiting list for kidneys, while only 634 kidneys were transplanted over 2006. Despite concerted efforts by the government and medical organizations, the number of organ donors is insufficient to meet demand, and is even falling according to the latest figures.

Some patients with kidney failure have rushed to support the program. "Of course it's a lottery, but the same goes for waiting lists", Ramona Hees, who received a donor kidney a few years ago, told Dutch public radio, adding that she would "definitely" have participated if she were still on the waiting list.

Medical experts are less enthusiastic. Apart from ethical concerns over the show, the Dutch Transplantation Foundation NTS points out that it is not known whether the kidney in question is healthy, nor if the blood types of the donor and contestants match. Furthermore, they doubt if any transplantation center in the Netherlands will be prepared to handle a procedure this controversial. BNN insists all these issues have been taken care of, but won't give any details.

Inevitatably, the controversy has spilled over into politics. Some members of Parliament have condemned the idea. But last-minute efforts to stop the show failed. Media minister Ronald Plasterk, while calling the competition element in the show "inappropriate and unethical," pointed out that the constitution bars him from interfering with the content of public broadcasting.

So, BNN plans to go ahead with the show, unmoved by the criticism. In fact, they have a message for their detractors: "Will those who stand in line to criticize us also take the trouble to fill out donor registration? Thank you."