In keeping with the spirit of the Holy Month of Ramadan, Infinity TV, the leading entertainment television network, has incorporated several society-focused missions in the second edition of its popular reality TV show, “Street Smarts 2”. As part of the initiative to make the program more socially relevant, the show’s contestants came together to organize a charity dinner to raise funds for the UAE Red Crescent and also tapped into their creativity to produce a TV commercial highlighting the ill-effects of smoking.
For the charity dinner, the show’s contestants themselves took the lead in creating awareness through printing brochures and inviting people to the event, where they collected donations to be handed over to the Red Crescent. This initiative was followed by the “stop-smoking campaign”, which required the participating teams to produce a 1-minute commercial on the health hazards of smoking, with the winning commercial being aired throughout the month of Ramadan on Infinity TV.
“We have made the show’s assignments more socially relevant in keeping with the true spirit of Ramadan, and it is heartening to note the positive response that initiatives such as the charity dinner and the stop-smoking campaign have received,” said Ziad Batal, Executive Producer and Senior Program Creator, Media Group. "The idea behind the stop-smoking campaign was to leverage the huge popularity of ‘Street Smarts’ to create awareness among the show’s audience about the ill-effects of smoking and persuade them to keep away from this dangerous vice. Encouragingly, we have seen an increase in viewership of ‘Street Smarts 2’ since the start of Ramadan, which means these campaigns are reaching a wider audience,” he added.
Taleen Kirresh, host of Street Smarts, said, “While reality TV shows are essentially about entertainment, this being the Holy Month of Ramadan, we decided to introduce new elements to ‘Street Smarts’ that promote social consciousness and emphasize the virtue of abstinence. We believe well-meaning initiatives such as these could positively impact the contestants as well as the viewers."
The second edition of Middle East’s first-of-its-kind reality TV show, ‘Street Smarts 2’ involves 16 Arab participants comprising men and women split into two mixed teams, who will be judged on their expertise and skills through 16 intense and intellectually stimulating assignments in the areas of business, entertainment and creativity. The person that successfully completes all assignments and survives the voting of the audience and the judgment of the jury panel at the end of 33 episodes will walk away with a prize money of US$ 100,000. The first season of the show turned out to be huge success, creating greater interest for the new season that went on air on September 6th, 2006.
