Extinct

[smurfboy]

I haven't seen anything of this programme until tonight, but I've just heard what the premise is and I'm disgusted. Eight celebrities are each 'supporting' an endangered species, and viewers have to phone in and vote for which one they'd most like to help save! This seems incredibly tacky to me. These aren't wannabe singers or people sitting around in a house - they're entire species of animals for heaven's sake. I don't want to get pious, but surely some things deserve to be treated with more respect than a phone-in vote?

[Velvet Darkness]

       

I could not agree with anything more.

I too think it is disgusting. How can anyone choose which one to vote for, how are you supposed to choose which species deserves to live more than another?  Who do they think they are that they think they can give us the right to decide what lives and what dies?

And who on earth decided such a thing was entertainment?

You do not sound pious smurfboy. You sound sensible and caring, decent and honest.

What a sad thing it is that the endangered species of the world must rely upon this kind of thing for their survival!! Honestly I could cry.

[goldencup]

All the species featured are going to gain from this programme so it's not all bad.  And if it brings things like global warming to people's attention I'm all for it.  The tiger won by the way.

Hard as it is I have to agree with Smurfboy on this.  This programme has taken interactive 'reality' shows to an all time low.

It's sad.  

[oldspice]

I agree that it's vital to save these species but to resort to such a shallow method is disturbing.

How can you vote in favour of one animal over another? It's crass.

[kevvosa]

Perhaps it's a reflection on society today that the only way you can get someone to care about an endangered species is to create a phone-in vote, complete with celebrities. Half the people watching these types of shows probably wouldn't know what an endangered species is. 

[loulou]

I think there should be a new reality show called 'kill the celebrity'.

[smurfboy]

All the species featured are going to gain from this programme so it's not all bad.  And if it brings things like global warming to people's attention I'm all for it.  The tiger won by the way.

Yes, but why have a 'winner'? If ITV had just donated the proceeds after costs from the phone calls (or even absorbed the costs themselves if they care that much) for each species, it might just have been acceptable. But instead the 'winning' animal got 50% of the money pledged with the rest split between the others as some kind of consolation prize - an obvious attempt to disguise the tackiness of this whole debacle.

Exactly. Do people understand what it means for a species to become extinct I wonder  These animals have been adapting to their environment and living on the planet for many thousands of years.  Each one is unique.  We are not talking about mass extinctions from meteorites here, these are due to pollution, hunting and habitat destruction.  The idea that one animal is more deserving than another disgusts me thoroughly.  There may be some laudible aim in the programme but the format is as Smurfy says tacky - at best!

[Velvet Darkness]

I think there should be a new reality show called 'kill the celebrity'.

That is an excellent idea, but how would it make any money? Who would phone to save any of them?

Perhaps if you could vote for who took part, or maybe how they were killed? 

Yes, that might work.