Next Big Brother Show: Chained Together For A Week

Netherlands Christian-democrats proposed the introduction of television censorship

After Big Brother finished in the Netherlands, the race started to cash in on the success. The first of the 'second generation' Big Brother reality-shows was the SBS6 version De Bus. Instead of putting the participants in a house, SBS6 puts them in a bus. A genius thought of that.

The idea was to travel around different cities, but the bus was attacked by football supporters in Den Haag. Since then, SBS6 has parked it at safer places, like Entertainment Park Miracle Planet in Enschede. There is no aggressive public at Miracle Planet. There is no public at all: it will not open until June.

Anyway, 'De Bus' is a great success, in the competition with Big Brother producer Endemol. (Endemol was recently acquired by Spanish telecom Telefonica, in the search for 'content', so be sure there will soon be a Spanish version).

But SBS has another idea to attract the viewer. Reality TV on a boat? A zeppelin? No, in the new 'reality-dating' show "Geboeid' (gefesselt) the candidates will be in a house - but they will be chained together for a week. One man to 4 women, or one woman to 4 men: every day one of the 4 is sent away, until a man-woman pair is left. The winning couple then go on holiday in the weekend - also with the cameras. But of course SBS6 respects the candidates privacy ... they are unchained when they go to the toilet.

The new programme was enough for the Netherlands Christian-democrats CDA. Their new leader Jaap de Hoop Scheffer reacted strongly: "Perverse ... the whole Netherlands society should say no to this". And he proposed the introduction of television censorship.

At least, a half censorship. His proposal is to add an 'Ethics Department' to the existing broadcasting authority, the Commissariaat voor de Media.

If the new department finds anything morally offensive, it would order the programme (or a whole channel) out of open broadcasting, and place it "behind a decoder". In other words, force it to become a subscriber-only channel.

At present the CDA is in opposition, but two government parties also condemned the new reality-tv show. Since there are plans for free decoders, the proposal might have some success. The problem is what the CDA might find morally offensive. Jaap de Hoop Scheffer is Catholic, married with two children, a hockey-playing ex-diplomat, ex-secretary of the Netherlands delegation to the NATO, ex-reserve-officer in the Air Force. His ideal TV programme probably includes the Pope, Jamie Shea, and the War on Drugs.

But that is not what the market brings. The market brings trash-tv. When everyone has a decoder, that problem will remain. Broadcasting will be more like Internet - it will be be trash-video instead of trash-tv. Some day the CDA must decide if it wants real censorship - an absolute prohibition on certain types of content.