The Gift that keeps on giving

Nine has announced Tara Brown as narrator for its new observational series about organ donation, The Gift.

It’s a subject that has been in the news this week after Endemol’s Dutch kidney-contest show turned out to be a hoax.

Donor donation was also the subject of two earlier specials on the TEN Network earlier this year, The Ultimate Donation. Whilst it didn’t rate that well, RPA has been going great guns for Nine, so it’s obviously all about packaging, scheduling and the type of audience networks specialise in.

Press Release:

The Nine Network and FremantleMedia Australia are proud to present The Gift, an eight-episode factual series hosted by 60 Minutes reporter Tara Brown which showcases the stories, trauma and importance of organ donation and transplants.

Nine’s director of programming, Michael Healy, said today: “This is a remarkable new series for Nine which chronicles the complex issues surrounding organ donation.

“For the families of organ donors and the recipients there are a myriad of emotions that each person will face.

We are incredibly privileged to be able to tell their stories.”

The Gift, which will be narrated by Brown, is an original format which has been championed by FremantleMedia Australia CEO, Mark Fennessy.

“There are presently hundreds of people across the country desperately waiting for the call that will save their lives,” Mr Fennessy said. “We’ll follow their dramatic stories and the extraordinary Australians who run the donor and recipient teams. The Gift will be a ground-breaking, inspirational and life-affirming series like no other, because there is nothing greater than the gift of life.”

The Gift is remarkable, life-changing television. It will follow real life stories as they happen. We will see the donor family and their journey as they face a wall of grief, yet still choose to give life to strangers they will never meet.

The Gift will profile the people on the transplant list who wait for the call that will rush them to hospital, surgery and an uncertain future. Extraordinary professionals work around the clock to make this happen.

Medical procedures will inform and intrigue audiences, who will witness first-hand the resilience of people facing some of the most extreme circumstances.

The production is based in Melbourne, executive producer is Paul Franklin and series producer is Julia Peters. The Gift will work closely with Life Gift, the division of the Red Cross responsible for organ donation and transplants. The series will premiere later in the year.