Since its inception a few years ago, the producers of reality tv have gone out of their way to shock audiences around the world. And acting unethically comes with the territory.

Last year, there was the controversy over the way Survivor divided contestants into whites, blacks, Asians and Hispanics.

Then last week, there was another controversy, this time in Australia, when one of the contestants was not told about the death of her father.

Now, just when we thought it couldn't get any worse, it's plumbed new ethical lows. A Dutch reality TV show will screen a terminally ill woman selecting one of three patients to receive her kidneys.

Because this decision amounts to a life and death issue, it's just a step or two away from snuff movie status.

The Big Donor Show is the brainchild of Big Brother creators Endemol.

Just a reminder that TV is an "ethical desert", writes The Guardian's Zoe Williams.

"TV is interesting because it's ethically lawless," Williams writes. "You can have all the self-regulation in the world, and it won't change the fact that this industry was born of an age we proudly call post-ideological, and understands nothing but money. More old-fashioned worlds like medicine, which still do interrogate themselves philosophically, are no match for this kind of delinquency."

As she says, TV has only one guiding principle: money.