Amsterdam
De Grote Donor Show

June 1, 2007, 8:30 PM… The Dutch TV channel Nederland 3/BNN broadcast “De Grote Donor Show” (The Big Donor Show).
The program involved Lisa, a terminally-ill women ready to give one of her kidney to a person awaiting a transplant. Lisa had less than six months to live, and would carry out the donation within a month of choosing a winner. During the show, 25 kidney patients were vetted by Lisa. Viewers were called on to vote for their favourite candidate by SMS text message for Euro 0.60 per vote during the show. The profit made by the text messages was given to the Dutch Kidney Foundation. Most of the patients were quickly dismissed for being too old, too young, smokers, ex-smokers or unemployed. The last round contestants to be selected were Esther Claire, 36, Vincent, 19, and Charlotte, 29. About 38% of the viewers who sent SMS voted for Charlotte.
Prior to its airing, the show had already provoked uproar in the Netherlands. Joop Atsma, a member of the Tweede Kamer (lower house) for the Christian Democratic party had attempted to censor the show. The Prime Minister Jan-Peter Balkenende had expressed his concerns for the potential damages caused by the program to the reputation of the Netherlands. He had vowed not to look at the show. In a press statement, the Dutch Kidney Foundation stated that they had asked BNN not to use their logo during the show - something which BNN did not asked permission before. The former director of TV station BNN, Bart de Graaff, died from kidney failure aged 35 after spending years on a transplant waiting list. "The chance for a kidney for the contestants is 33%," said the station's current chairman, Laurens Drillich. "This is much higher than that for people on a waiting list. We think that is disastrous, so we are acting in a shocking way to bring attention to this problem."
Ten minutes before the end of the show, presenter Patrick Lodiers said that “Lisa” was an actress, not actually dying of a brain tumour as claimed. The entire exercise was intended to pressure the Dutch government into reforming its organ donation laws and raise public awareness of the need for organs, he said. The three prospective recipients were real patients in need of transplants and had been in on the hoax, the show said. In the few hours after the show BNN received SMS from over 12,000 viewers who told the network that they would fill in a donor form.
Laurens Drillich told the press “It was very hard to keep the secret, and to tell this lie time after time, but I did it because of the good cause”.