by Lamiat Sabin

PRESSURE mounted yesterday on the BBC to scrap a show dubbed “voyeuristic poverty porn” before the filming has even started.

At least 14,000 people have signed a Change.org petition calling for the production of the “degrading and exploitative” programme to be abandoned.

The BBC2 show, called Britain’s Hardest Grafter, would follow 25 young low-income workers and unemployed people doing jobs deemed to be some of the worst paid.

The winner would get £15,000, as much as the annual living wage outside London. A recruitment poster for the show states: “This project will give you the opportunity to prove your abilities.”

Campaigners likened the five-episode series to Channel 4’s reality fodder Benefits Street and the Hunger Games films, where starving children fight to their deaths in televised contests.

The petition’s author James Pauley said: “This is the next rung down the ladder in the disturbing trend of voyeuristic poverty porn made popular in programmes like Benefits Street. Unemployment and poverty are serious social issues and should not be the subject of a cheap game show format designed to exploit some of the most impoverished in our society for the purposes of dubious entertainment.”

However, the BBC and production company Twenty Twenty denied that the “current affairs commission” is enjoyment at the expense of those on the breadline. In a joint statement, they said: “The welfare of those taking part is of paramount importance and it is a misinterpretation of the concept of the series to suggest it is exploitative.”