CBS's New Fall Television Lineup: Ethics and Singing and Drew Carrey?

CBS Entertainment Chief Nina Tassler is off her rocker.

This greenlighter has decided that what the world needs more of is reality game shows with kids, shows where the actors break into song and Drew Carrey replacing Bob Barker on "The Price is Right."

First, she is pressing her luck on the worn-out, but still apparently marketable reality game show genre one more time. The new show scheduled for next season is "Kid Nation" which puts 40 kids ages 8- 15 stranded in a New Mexico Ghost Town with no adults. Of course there is a small army of adults behind the cameras including doctors, psychologists and producers, but you aren't supposed to think about that. The kids job is to improve the town while participating in "Survivor" like contests and a chance to win a $20,000 "gold star" that's awarded in each episode.

There has been some controversy over this series due to the producers working a loophole in child labor laws. Apparently New Mexico didn't consider TV programs something that could be covered under the laws, so kids could technically "work" more hours per day than they could in California or New York. And as one blogger pointed out, there are no California or New York kids in the show. Coincidence? Hmmmm...

Producer Tom Foreman denied the allegations of over-working the kids at a press conference saying "the kids woke up whenever they wanted and went to bed whenever they wanted." but a follow-up article by TV Week James Hibberd shows the amount of backpedaling the producers have done over the whole issue: