Talk about finding out who the weakest link is…
There is a show that my Mom watches called Survivor Man. It may come close. The premise of the show is that the guy is dropped in the middle of nowhere (and I’m no talking the tropics like Survivor, I’m talking the Rockies in winter) with the clothes on his back and a backpack full of recording equipment. A meeting place is set up and he has to make his way there. If anything goes wrong he is all alone.
I imagine that you couldn’t have such a show in the United States (at least not on the non-cable networks), as they’re still “bleeping-out” what they consider to be “bad words”.
Television seems to be less inhibited in other nations outside the United States, and I imagine in some places almost “anything goes”.
How about something akin to a sport with known often lethal consequences. examples might include live steel swordfighting, or some kind of sport hunting for people.
I read a short story once about a secret “game” that involved turning people loose over hundreds of acres of wilderness with self purchased small arms, knives, etc, basically whatever they could carry in. They would post a $5000 “bounty” as they called it. When you killed someone you would pull their dogtags that identified them. half of the bounty was given to you as a prize, the other half was added to your “bounty” so a new player who scored his first kill would now be worth $7500, and on up as you scored more and more kills. The story followed a long time veteran player whos bounty was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, while he stalked another veteran player who carried a similar bounty.
No questions were ever asked as to who a player was as long as he posted his bounty so if you came in with a set of dog tags and present yours for updating, no other records were kept. Fatalities were returned as “hunting accidents” or other explanations depending on the nature of the injuries suffered. You did not have to kill a contestant but it was generally the most sure fire way to collect a bounty. Many of them used bows and other nearly silent weapons to avoid drawing in other contestants to the area of their kill.
In such circumstances the producers have not killed anyone, nor have they provided the prize money, just profited from the rebroadcast of the activity.
Could something like this legally exist when it was difficult at best to define who killed who and pseudonyms are the norm, since the location could always be different and being by invitation only could make a more difficult to penetrate organization.
Sorry not exit but be legally broadcast since the producers of the show are not really directly benefiting or losing anything from the death or maiming of a contestant and not doing any of the actual injuring, just setting up hundreds of cameras across the woods trying to get enough footage to edit into a show.
I’m sure an enterprising prosecutor could make a case against the producers of your proposed hunt show. Yes, perhaps the only involvement of the producers is to set up cameras and gather footage, but the question arises as to how the producers know where to set up those cameras. They just happened to stumble across the one spot in all the land where people are hunting one another for sports? Unlikely. It’s conspiracy to commit murder, and if not it’s at least obstruction of justice or hindering prosecution.
I’m wondering about the Japanese shows as well.
I don’t think I’ve seen what the other poster has seen, but Most Extreme Elimination looks rough sometimes. People hit their heads a number of times, and one person fell between the rollers and was practically folded in two at the waist, the wrong way. I’ve only seen a bit of any others, but I’ve heard they’re crazy.
Happily conceded, what if less lethal methods like are often used for subduing prisoners that in theory could result in death but rarely do like tasers and such.
Its one of my fondest desires to see a game show where instead of that Survivor crap they instead drop a bunch of mopes into Borneo (or wherever) with a butter knife and tell them that they have 6 months to survive. They can ask to leave at any time, and if they get too sick then they can be taken out (of course, if they die they are out of the game as well 
). Whoever is left at the end of 6 months splits the prize (say a million dollars). So…its REALLY about survival and small groups of people having to pull together to overcome the trials such a situation would put you through.
I bet they would get plenty of folks willing to give it a shot. I am also fairly confident it would be perfectly legal, even though there is more than a slight risk of injury or even death. After all, isn’t this similar to the Eco-Challenge games from a few years ago (but over a longer time period). Several folks in that race were hurt quite badly IIRC and one nearly died (bike accident).
-XT
You’re missing the angle behind US TV censorship.
We’re concerned our kids may learn naughty words.
We’re much less concerned our children will grow up to be murderers. You can get away with all kinds of violence on broadcast TV. It’s when you swear or make babies the censors get an itchy finger.
How many children actually go out and kill people?
How many children drop F-bombs around the house?
What would be the legality of an ultimate sports challenge, allowing a mixed group to take on free rock climbing, motor racing, free diving, etc.
Each sport being potentialy dangerous even to experts. Any competitor can retire at any time, but if you fail to complete any event you have no chance of winning the top prize.
IIRC, we had on the high side of 13,000 murders last year I saw numbers for.
As far as dropping F-bombs, I’d say ALL of them. Some are smart enough to do it behind their parent’s backs.