Dicey TV solution for student debt concerns
THE DAYS OF anxious cash-back at Tesco and the embarrassment of a refused Visa card may soon be over with a new Channel 4 game-show called Dicing with Debt. The show, which will feature only students, offers a weekly winner the chance to have their student loan paid off - all on the throw of a dice.
Hat Trick Productions, producers of Bafta Award-winning Have I Got News For You, Room 101 and the recent BBC 2 programme Sex 'n' Death, will start recording the series in June and are now searching for cash-strapped students to take part.
The programme has been attacked for its 'dumbing down' of student debt. OUSU President Anneliese Dodds is appalled: "I certainly wouldn't encourage people to go on it. Making it big on television or at the bookies isn't a very good way of dealing with debt. It's a really serious issue."
Hat Trick Productions refused to comment on the President's condemnation of the programme but expressed concern that it would influence the number of book-and-beer-bingeing students turning up to the auditions, which are still set to take place in Oxford on May 16th.
Some students, however, are leaping at the chance to grab some easy money. Ian KcKinney, a broke Brasenose second year, has no qualms about entering the competition, saying, "it really is just for the money." £4000 in one night has more temptation than months of a measly wage as a shelf-stacker in a local supermarket.
The application form for the controversial game-show asks contestants to describe themselves in five words and then asks for the four-figure sum of their student loan. It boasts "a selection of quirky prizes that will dramatically improve college life." Among the typical student-aimed prizes are a backstage pass to a festival, your weight in ice-cream or a king-size bed. The overall show winner could walk away with their student loan paid off.
The programme follows in the wake of student-aimed competitions hoping to ape the success of University Challenge. Channel 4's new programme dotcomedy, hosted by the infamous exhibitionist Gail Porter, runs a nation-wide student competition called 'Scan Frankenstein.' The aim of the show is to build up a huge person on set made out of scans of different bits of students' naked bodies. They are currently asking for students to send scantily-clad scans to their website, asserting that they will "accept everything."
Interested in ditching the debt? Call the Dicing With Debt hotline on 020 7434 3214 or email dwd@hattrick.com. E-mail naked bodies to: ollie@princess.uk.com.
27th Apr 2000