Gene C.
12-07-1999, 03:27 AM
Send Page Last updated: Tuesday - 05:53 12/07/99, EST
'Anything for Money' Show Sparks Scandal
LIMA (Reuters) - Peru's ombudsman slammed two popular television talk shows on Friday for daring audience members to do ``anything for money'' in a live program, including licking dirty armpits and lying in frogs' urine.
The two competing shows, ``Laura on America'' and ''Maritere'', broadcast the controversial programs last weekend, paying participants $20 to $40 for taking up challenges that provoked an outcry from the public and politicians.
Challenges included a woman licking the armpits and feet of a sweaty, half-naked man. Two scantily-clad women lay in a pool of frogs' urine. A man dressed in feathers and ate bird feed.
For $20, one man covered his head in cockroaches and another, elderly man rode a tricycle around the television studio naked apart from baby diapers.
The programs prompted debate in the media about limits to freedom of expression. Members of Congress accused the shows of taking advantage of cash-strapped people in one of South America's poorest nations.
``Nothing justifies what has been done, and even less so when it is for money,'' Martha Chavez, a member of President Alberto Fujimori's ruling party in Congress, was quoted as saying in El Sol newspaper.
The ombudsman's office, which monitors civil rights, called for the government to withdraw state advertisements on the programs, locked in a ratings war. Government-run spots account for about a fifth of the programs' advertising revenues.
``It affects the dignity of some people, asking them to carry out degrading acts and taking advantage ... of the poverty of large sectors of society,'' the ombudsman's office said in a letter sent to Prime Minister Alberto Bustamante.
Both programs, known in Peru as ``reality shows'', are on air at the same time on Saturday nights, a peak viewing time, and have caused controversy with their hard-hitting subjects, including confronting husband's lovers with their wives.
'Anything for Money' Show Sparks Scandal
LIMA (Reuters) - Peru's ombudsman slammed two popular television talk shows on Friday for daring audience members to do ``anything for money'' in a live program, including licking dirty armpits and lying in frogs' urine.
The two competing shows, ``Laura on America'' and ''Maritere'', broadcast the controversial programs last weekend, paying participants $20 to $40 for taking up challenges that provoked an outcry from the public and politicians.
Challenges included a woman licking the armpits and feet of a sweaty, half-naked man. Two scantily-clad women lay in a pool of frogs' urine. A man dressed in feathers and ate bird feed.
For $20, one man covered his head in cockroaches and another, elderly man rode a tricycle around the television studio naked apart from baby diapers.
The programs prompted debate in the media about limits to freedom of expression. Members of Congress accused the shows of taking advantage of cash-strapped people in one of South America's poorest nations.
``Nothing justifies what has been done, and even less so when it is for money,'' Martha Chavez, a member of President Alberto Fujimori's ruling party in Congress, was quoted as saying in El Sol newspaper.
The ombudsman's office, which monitors civil rights, called for the government to withdraw state advertisements on the programs, locked in a ratings war. Government-run spots account for about a fifth of the programs' advertising revenues.
``It affects the dignity of some people, asking them to carry out degrading acts and taking advantage ... of the poverty of large sectors of society,'' the ombudsman's office said in a letter sent to Prime Minister Alberto Bustamante.
Both programs, known in Peru as ``reality shows'', are on air at the same time on Saturday nights, a peak viewing time, and have caused controversy with their hard-hitting subjects, including confronting husband's lovers with their wives.