Current Affairs Porn scandal kills Czech-made reality show

Lonely Hearts Hotel, photo: Dalibor Puchta, www.idnes.cz Private TV Nova gave its first home-made reality dating show a huge build up, inviting people of all ages to "watch chemistry at work". The winning couple would get it all: fame and fortune, a fabulous wedding and a million crowns.

Ester Ladova, photo: www.novatv.cz "It will be a sociological probe into the life of today's young people," the show's producers promised. They got a lot more than they bargained for. The reality that the reality show at Lonely Hearts Hotel unveiled made viewers, producers and advertisers sit up in shock. One of the contestants -Ester Ladova admitted during the live show that she had "made two porn films in the course of one day". The number of text messages viewers sent her went through the roof. The next day her porn pictures appeared in the country's leading tabloid Blesk. Within hours the show's producer received a video cassette of another contestant engaged in group sex and a third has now admitted to having done some nude photographs for a porn magazine. The show's producers did not wait for further revelations and announced that they were scrapping the Million Dollar Couple. "The contestants' liberal approach to sex has reached such shocking dimensions that it is not possible to continue with the show as planned" a TV Nova spokesman said. He added that advertisers who had bought slots in the programme were demanding an explanation and that dozens of infuriated parents had sent complaints to the Council for Radio and TV broadcasting. The station may have to pay a fine of up to 10 million crowns and there is speculation that heads will roll at the highest posts. Only the author of the reality show Evzen Gogela was happy with what NOVA aired - "it was good, he said, it was getting really good. We gave viewers what we promised - a glimpse of reality". It was the last thing that Czech parents wanted to hear.