The controversial kidney donor tv show broadcast on Dutch TV on Friday evening was a staged performance. The show, in which a terminally ill woman was to chose which of three people would get one of her kidneys, had created a storm of protest at home and abroad.

As the show ended, presenter Patrick Lodiers revealed that it was all a set up. The donor Lisa was an actrice and although the three people competing for a kidney all have kidney disease, they were in on the plot.
The show was broadcast on public channel BNN on Friday evening. The station said the aim was to boost the number of organ donors.
Media crews from all over the world were in Hilversum to record reactions to the show, which had been condemned by prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende just hours before the broadcast.
‘We’ve been working on the show for a year but we never expected this success,’ said BNN chairman Laurens Drillich. ‘BNN founder Bart de Graaff, who died of kidney failure, would have wanted it this way.’