Critics blasted producers of the pioneering reality TV show "Survivor", saying that plans to divide the competitors by race could trigger racial tensions in the US

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Critics blast race-tainted 'Survivor' show
DPA

Los Angeles/New York, Aug 27 (DPA) Critics blasted producers of the pioneering reality TV show "Survivor", saying that plans to divide the competitors by race could trigger racial tensions in the US.

The new format splits the 20 initial players competing for the $1 million prize in the Cook Islands into four tribes based on ethnicity: Hispanic, African-American,
Asian-American and Caucasian.

This was conceived as the genre-creating show enters its 13th season amid falling ratings and increased competition from more successful reality TV shows like "American Idol".

If the point of the idea was to generate controversy as a way to draw viewers back to the faltering show, which starts on Sep 14, the plan may have been too successful.

Campaign group Hispanics Across America called the programme "racist TV" and said it was an "offensive and cheap trick" to boost ratings.

"The participants will be held to the daunting and unfair challenge of representing an entire race of people," said the group's founder Fernando Mateo.

"This programme is drumming up every old stereotype," James Pritchett, director of the African Studies Centre at Boston University, told the Boston Herald.

"What next, a show pitting Jews and Muslims and Christians against each other?"
.

Or as the New York Post put it in a headline: "What's Next? Germans vs Jews?"

In New York, members of the city council's Black, Latino and Asian Caucus held a rally urging CBS to drop the racial aspects of the show.

"This idea is so ill-conceived that it would be funny - but for the fact that racism does still sometimes rear its ugly head," city councilman John Liu said at a press conference
Friday. "This show has the potential to set back our nation's race relations by 50 years.

"No where else do we tolerate racial segregation and we certainly won't stand for it in this battle-of-the-races scheme to prop up sagging television ratings," added Liu, who
is Asian-American.

However, executives for broadcaster CBS don't get paid million-dollar salaries for not anticipating such potential controversy. The company issued a pre-emptive statement
saying it "fully recognises the controversial nature of this format, but has full confidence in the producers and their ability to produce the programme in a responsible
manner".

"'Survivor' is a programme that is no stranger to controversy and has always answered its critics on the screen," the statement said.

"Survivor" presenter Jeff Probst argued that the show was simply reflecting reality, and that the race plan was taking its social experiment to a new level.

"Survivor" creator Mark Burnett even suggested to Variety magazine that the new format might help soften the ethnic boundaries in American society.

"Maybe that taboo could disappear through this," he said, drawing a sarcastic response from media pundit Andy Dehnart.

"Perhaps, and if that works, maybe "Survivor" 14 can cast people from the Middle East and solve all of those centuries-old problems in just 39 days. In just a few more
seasons, there will be world peace," Dehnart wrote on his website, Realityblurred.com.

--DPA

Indo-Asian News Service