During the 1960's and 70's, the nation of Singapore was having a hard time dealing with its population growth. Singapore is a very small island, and it was feared that the drastic increase in population would cause overcrowding and economic stress. The government started a control campaign with the slogan "Stop at Two." This strategy worked quite well, and soon the population growth leveled out.
During the late 90's, it became apparent that the campaign worked a little too well, as only 52000 babies were born in Singapore in 1988. By 2002, the number was 40800, well below the number needed to keep the population level. Condom manufacturer Durex rated Singapore as the least sexually active nation in the world for both 2002 and 2003. The Singapore government, in an attempt to get things going, began subsidizing romantic dinners on Valentine's Day, special hormone monitoring services, and tax breaks for people having second or third children. None of this seemed to have any effect on the populace.
Enter Doctor Wei Siang Yu, more commonly known to the locals as "Doctor Love." A native Singaporean trained in Australia, the good doctor had already created a program called MEGGalert, which allowed women to monitor their ovulations by cell phone text messages. Dr. Love came to the conclusion that talking to doctors was not the best way for the people of Singapore to learn more about sex. He launched a series of romantic cruise trips to locations in Indonesia in 2003, as a part of the "Sex, Love, and Babies" campaign. Soon, he decided to talk to the populace using a more direct means: television.
In conjunction with the government, Dr. Love will launch the "Midnight Dr. Love Talk Show" in the spring of 2004. "We will have people come and talk about their love lives and private lives. We will also talk about their strategies on love, basically allowing them to talk, listen, understand and analyze," says Doctor Yu. Another part of his show will include romantic bathtub and massage tutorials, as well as information regarding the menstrual cycle and other sex-related tips.
The pinnacle of this plan is the reality show. Planned to premiere in the summer of 2004, Dr. Love's Super Baby-Making Show will feature ten couples from around the world. Over the next two months, the couples would compete to see who could successfully conceive a child first. The winning couple would receive prize money, but the amount it yet to be determined. The show will also investigate some of the problems that the couples encounter while living in Singapore, in an attempt to educate viewers on how to solve their own relationship issues. This is quite a shock to the normally uptight Singapore social standards, which usually ban racy television shows from their country.
Dr. Love is still looking for a producer for his reality show. Two Singapore broadcasters, MediaCorp and MediaWorks, have displayed interest in adding the show to their line-up.
Resources:
http://www.worldpress.org/Asia/1703.cfm
http://www.todayonline.com/articles/14544.asp
http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2004/feb/16/yehey/top_stories/20040216top10.html
http://www.theworld.org/latesteditions/20040216.shtml
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