This morning on BBC World, we were told about the latest in German reality television: Death TV. Watch the report here.
Michele Hartley explains that it’s undertakers who are behind this ghoulish, um, undertaking:
As if television isn’t depressing enough, starting in 2008, you can watch the death channel in Germany. Etos-TV, a new German channel which will start broadcasting in 2008, is devoted to death. The channel will feature documentaries on cemeteries and burials and other issues dealing with death. Additionally, you can spend your day viewing obituaries.
For people that have lost loved ones a photo and written obituary costs about 2,000 euros a photo for ten spots, and for a little more money, videos of the deceased and spoken narrative can be broadcast. Etos-TV calls itself the “neue Trauerkanel” (the new sad channel) and sees the new channel as a new vehicle for the undertakers of Germany to reach the public as well as capitalizing on the close to a million deaths a year in the country due to the aging population. It does make a for a nice tribute to loved ones and people have the added advantage of being able to put the tribute on the Internet once it has aired. For my money, it’s a bit more reality than I care to deal with.
“Everone is entitled to an obituary,” says one of the guys interviewed in the BBC piece.
Indeed.
