In a continuing effort to win the TV ratings war and offend the hard-pressed middle England licence-fee payer, Channel 4 has announced two new shows, due to hit our screens later this Spring.
"Dead Brother" and "Celebrity Dead Brother" will draw on an as yet untapped pool of people in the UK.
A spokesmen said: "The existing big Brother and Celebrity Big Brother format has already successfully drawn participants from both the brain-dead and un-dead communities. The success of this format has delivered substantial returns to our sponsors, with hitherto unseen profits to our premium rate telephone numbers.
"We undertook research in and around major graveyards in the UK, and discovered the deceased have never been offered an opportunity to appear on mainstream television.
"We will be notifying all churches and embarking on a series of auditions to identify suitably dead candidates."
However, the controversy surrounding unreality TV shows has already started way in advance of accusations of vote rigging to increase premium telephone line revenue.
In a harshly-worded letter to the show's producers, Shirley MacLaine, one of the first celebrities to be contacted, was said to be livid with the show.
"My celebrity brother, Warren Beatty, was invited to join the first show in the series.
"When I discovered, three months later, that he was still alive, I was furious. Thanks to Channel 4, we had suffered all the relatives at a large, expensive party, under the incorrect assumption that he had passed away."
Celebrity Dead Brother is being sponsored by the Co-Op Animal Mortuary and Pie Company Ltd.
