Introducing the BBC's new reality TV show: Benefits Street meets The Hunger Games

[sadone]

The BBC will make the unemployed and low-paid workers compete against each other for a cash prize in a controversial Hunger Games-type show to find ““Britain’s Hardest Grafter”.

 

The BBC plan to screen a "Hunger Games" style game show will make unemployed people and low-paid workers compete in a series of challenges and tasks in competition for a cash prize. Only the UK’s lowest-paid workers and the unemployed will be invited to compete.

 

At the end of each episode, those who have produced the least will be eliminated and by the end of the process, just one worker will remain. The winner will receive in the region of £15,000 which is estimated to be a year’s living wage, outside of London.

 

This is the next rung down the ladder in the disturbing trend of voyeuristic "poverty porn" made popular in programmes like 'Benefits Street'.

 

Unemployment and poverty are serious social issues and should not be the subject of a cheap game show format, designed to exploit some of the most impoverished in our society for the purposes of dubious "entertainment".

 

Not even the cheapest and tackiest of the cable or satellite channels have stooped to this level. We believe a higher standard should be expected from the BBC, a national broadcaster that is funded by public subscription in the form of the license fee.

 

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/bbc-to-pit-lowpaid-against-each-other-in-hunger-gamesstyle-show-to-find-britains-hardest-grafter-10279386.html

 

And if you're disgusted by that:

 

The BBC: Stop the BBC's "Hunger Games" Style Show - Sign the Petition!

 

384 signatures are still needed!

 

https://www.change.org/p/the-bbc-stop-the-bbc-s-hunger-games-style-show

 

The BBC states that its mission is...

 

"To enrich people's lives with programmes and services that inform, educate and entertain."

 

Now that mission apparently includes the exploitation of the poor and vulnerable members of our society as fodder for a game show.

 

The signatories of this petition strongly object to this degrading and exploitative format and demand that the BBC abandon its plans to broadcast this programme.

 

This poverty porn is getting out of control imo.

[tommy456]

Just yet another reason not to support the bbc financially by paying the tv tax/licence if you really needed another reason

[Sparks_]

I posted this on a FB page supporting the disabled.......

More chances for the 'haves' to redicule the 'have nots' what next? how about tours of mental hospitals to enetertain the well off? Bring back the stocks, part of benefit sanction maybe a set amount of hours in the stocks so the well off can have some fun chucking rotten eggs at you?

[Mr.P]

The BBC: Stop the BBC's "Hunger Games" Style Show - Sign the Petition!

https://www.change.org/p/the-bbc-stop-the-bbc-s-hunger-games-style-show

 

One less signature required. I for one will not be buying a TV licence, and this type of "entertainment" is just one reason.

[fkofilee]

Ooooooooooo! *Rubs Hands With Glee*

I will be watching this with Glee ... I hope this is cancelled well before filming!

[honeybee13]

That's a shocker, I'm signing.

 

HB

[jasta11]

Exactly why I gave up owning a tv 12 years ago, because of rubbish programs like this. The sad thing is that people will still flock to take part, however demeaning because the lure of 'being on the telly' is so strong. Look at programmes like Jerry Springer, Jeremy Kyle, etc - pretty degrading but never a shortage of participants.

 

The BBC is undeserving of any respect these days anyway - look how they colluded with police to film the entry and search of Cliff Richard's house before he even knew about it. Whatever happened to dignity?? This is the company whose radio presenters had at one time to wear evening dress during their broadcasts, to 'maintain standards' even though nobody could see them. How times change; especially when there's big money to be made.

[Sparks_]

http://agirlcalledjack.com/2015/05/28/thinking-of-applying-for-britains-hardest-grafter-read-this-first/

[Nystagmite]

Yawn. Don't we already have enough programmes bashing the poor / people on benefits?

[tommy456]

I posted this on a FB page supporting the disabled.......

More chances for the 'haves' to redicule the 'have nots' what next? how about tours of mental hospitals to enetertain the well off? Bring back the stocks, part of benefit sanction maybe a set amount of hours in the stocks so the well off can have some fun chucking rotten eggs at you?

 

They couldn't do tours of NHS mental hospitals as thatcher and cronies closed them back in the late eighties /early nineties and as a result we have "care in the community" an other thing that the tories broke, most of the land that the asylums stood on has been sold and houses built on it, with the exception of a few that where listed buildings which where not set alight in order to ensure they got demolished,