De Grote Donorshow

De Grote Donorshow
The Great Donor Show logo (note the "o"'s substitution by the logo of the Dutch Kidney Foundation)
Also known asThe Great Donor Show
GenreReality television
Created byEndemol
Presented byPatrick Lodiers
Country of originNetherlands
Original languageDutch
Production
ProducerEndemol
Production locationAalsmeer
Original release
NetworkNederland 3 (via BNN)
Infobox instructions (only shown in preview)
A screenshot of the television show. Patrick Lodiers, the host of the show (right), has just announced that no kidney donation is going to take place, and that the show was a hoax. The photo to the right of the screen is of BNN founder Bart de Graaff.

De Grote Donorshow (The Great Donor Show) was a reality television program which was broadcast in the Netherlands on Friday, June 1, 2007, by BNN. The program involved a supposedly terminally ill 37-year-old woman donating a kidney to one of twenty-five people requiring a kidney transplantation. After a first selection, three people remained. Viewers were able to send advice on whom they thought she should choose to give her kidney to via text messages.[1][2] The profit made by the text messages was given to the Dutch Kidney Foundation.[3] The program, due to its controversial nature, had received heavy international criticism in the run-up to the broadcast.[1][2] In the end, it was revealed during the course of the show that the "terminally ill" woman was, in reality, an actress, although the three candidates were, in fact, real kidney patients; they were aware that Lisa was an actress, and participated because they were supportive of BNN's cause to give awareness to the limited number of organ donors in the Netherlands.[4]

In a press statement after the show, Paul Römer, the director of the program's creator Endemol, stated that the show was necessary in order to get the shortage of donors back on the political agenda.[5]

  1. ^ a b "The Scotsman". Archived from the original on 2007-10-19. Retrieved 2007-05-29.
  2. ^ a b "Sky News". Archived from the original on 2007-06-01. Retrieved 2007-05-29.
  3. ^ (in Dutch) Jeugdjournaal Archived 2007-09-30 at the Wayback Machine
  4. ^ "Washington Post, June 1, 2007". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 2012-11-02. Retrieved 2017-08-26.
  5. ^ (in Dutch) BNN's press statement[dead link] in which BNN explains that the show was a hoax, and why they did it.