Orange taxi

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Taxi Orange was a reality TV series that was broadcast by the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation in 2000 (1st season; September 16 to November 30, 2000) and 2001 (2nd season; April 20 to June 27, 2001) , in a similar format to the globally successful Big Brother series . Due to falling audience ratings, no further season was produced.

The broadcast

At Taxi Orange, a group of 13 young people lived together in a house called Kutscherhof in Vienna's 13th district at Speisinger Strasse 66. They earned their living as taxi drivers, for which they had two orange taxis (hence the name). The apartment, the yard and the vehicles were equipped with cameras . The entire lives of the Taxi Orange candidates were recorded and a summary broadcast daily. Once a week, viewers voted for their favorite candidate, who then, after a brief period of thought, excluded one of his roommates from the program. The last candidate left in the house received 1 million schillings in prize money. The program was hosted by Dodo Roscic , while Oliver Auspitz acted as the external host . The title song "Siegerstraße" for the show came from the Austrian band Ohrrausch .

The format

The format was developed by Mischa Zickler on behalf of ORF , who was awarded the Austrian Romy TV Prize in 2001.

The ORF sold the format under the name Biri bizi gözetliyor ("Somebody is watching us") to a Turkish broadcaster, which broadcast it in a total of four seasons with similar success until 2003.

The candidates

The candidates became stars in Austria within a few weeks.

1st season

  • Max Schmiedl , the winner of the first season brought, following the mission a successful CD album out in 2002 star of the comedy show was bold real and 2004 for six months moderator of the football show direct hit on the Austrian commercial broadcaster ATV . In 2007 he was featured in the Austrian daily soap Mitten im 8en, which was discontinued after just a few weeks . Since 2011 he has moderated the quiz show Quiz Taxi Austria .
  • Robert Höchtl , known as Mama , came out as homosexual in the first broadcast and remained prominent as such for a long time. In the second season he was on the jury alongside Brigitte Xander and Robert Kratky .

2nd season

The candidates of the second season, although they were also successful in terms of market share, were quickly forgotten after the show ended. The winners of both seasons, Max Schmiedl and Josef Kendlbacher (Killy), donated their winnings of 1 million schilling (approx. € 72,600) each: Max donated everything to abused children, Killy donated 90 percent of Licht ins Dunkel , the rest he allowed friends and itself.

A candidate of the second season was selected on the move-in day. Anyone who had a taxi license in Vienna could register and the audience voted on the radio so that an applicant could move in.

The taxis

After the end of the second season, car no. 5, which was not a camera car but just a director's car painted according to the TXO pattern, was donated to the SOS Children's Village Hinterbrühl. From there he later moved to the children's village in Pinkafeld , which sold him at the end of 2006. The first of the three taxis was auctioned at the beginning of 2002, the other two were painted silver in the ORF and reused. The silver car No. 4 (jury car) also remained with ORF.

The public discussion

Even before the broadcast began, a detailed and heated discussion began in Austria about whether public broadcasters were allowed to approach reality formats. The format was even mentioned in the National Council . After the end of the first season, the ORF felt compelled to hold a public hearing on Taxi Orange.

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