It was the reality show to end all reality shows.

The Dutch Prime Minister had said that he feared for his country’s reputation after The Big Donor Show promised to force three patients to compete for a terminally ill woman’s kidney.

In the end, after international condemnation and 45 tense prime-time minutes in which “Lisa” agonised in front of a live studio audience over whether Esther-Claire, Vincent or Charlotte would receive her kidney, the lights went up and it was revealed as a hoax.

“We are not giving away a kidney here, that is going too far even for us,” Patrick Lodiers, the presenter, announced. Turning to the contestants, he added: “They are not actors, they are real kidney patients and their stories were deadly serious.”

The three contestants were genuine sufferers of kidney failure, on the Netherlands’ four-year waiting list for a new organ. Lisa was revealed to be an actress who had a friend who died waiting for a transplant. All agreed to go along with a programme that the makers insisted was to raise awareness of a genuine medical issue, while its detractors suspected it was simply an exercise to revive a flagging channel’s ratings.

But far from having the last laugh, Endemol, the creators of Big Brother and the originators of The Big Donor Show, came in for even more criticism from a patients’ group after the stunt was revealed.

Tim Statham, chief executive of Britain’s National Kidney Federation, said it was an appalling idea that struck a new broadcasting low.

He said that potential donors would have been deterred from agreeing to give up their organs voluntarily because of the crass commercialism shown by the makers.

Mr Statham, who represents 20,000 patients in the UK, said: “I hope Endemol go bankrupt for their disturbing actions.” He added: “These people should realise that if you have kidney failure you will eventually die. The only thing that can temporarily save you is dialysis or a kidney donation. To actually play games with people’s hopes is appalling.”

At the conclusion of the one-off show, one of the contestants, Esther-Claire, 36, said that she wanted the programme to be a wake-up call to stimulate debate about organ donation.

The hoax divided opinion in the Netherlands, where the Cabinet had rejected calls from some MPs to ban the programme, saying that would amount to censorship.

Joop Atsma, a Christian Democrat MP who had called for the Government to stop the show, said that he still found the whole thing tasteless. But Ronald Plasterk, the Culture Minister, who this week called the programme “inappropriate and unethical because of the contest element”, praised the hoax as “a fabulous stunt”.

He added that the television station BNN had chosen an intelligent way to demand attention for the donor shortage in the Netherlands.

About 200 people every year die in the Netherlands waiting for a transplant and more than 1,000 are on the list.

Caroline Klingers, a kidney patient who was watching the show at the Kidney Patients Organisation headquarters in Bussum, the Netherlands, said: “I thought it was brilliant, really. I know these transplant doctors, and I thought they’ll never go and actually do it. But it was good for the publicity and there are no losers.”

Speaking at a press conference after the broadcast, Laurens Drillich, director of BNN, said: “We worked on this stunt for a year but we never thought it would be such a runaway success. We received a lot of international attention for a problem that does really exist.”

Programmed for trouble

— Last October Five broadcast Birth Night Live, produced by Endemol, showing a birth live. Midwives and parents’ charities accused the company of turning childbirth into a spectacle for ratings

— In June 2004 Hertfordshire Police investigated a drunken brawl between contestants on Big Brother. After the production company stoked up tensions between housemates, one of them had to be removed for everyone’s safety

— Brainteaser, a Five late-night phone-in produced by a subsidiary of Endemol, featured winning contestants whose names had been made up. A member of the production team went on air as a winning contestant

— Celebrity Big Brother was roundly criticised this year after the Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty was allegedly racially abused by other members of the house. More than 40,000 viewers complained

Source: Times database

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