‘Best, brightest young entrepreneurs’ get a shot
Dragons’ Den goes back to basics in a student-oriented edition that teaches, among other things, that there’s no substitute for hard work and doing your homework when it comes to a credible business proposition. Yes, Dragons’ Den often comes across as a thinly disguised PSA for the almighty buck, but as this week’s outing shows, morality and ethics don’t always have to take a seat at the back of the class. It all depends on who’s doing the talking and, more importantly, who’s listening.
By now, Dragons’ Den has brokered so many deals, and been on the air for so long, that it all becomes a blur after a while. While an all-student edition may seem gimmicky, as host Dianne Buckner says at the outset, this week’s show is designed to give Canada’s “best and brightest young entrepreneurs” a chance to school their elders in the art of the deal. The “best and brightest” in this case includes a noisy disc jockey from Stratford, Ont., asking for $20,000 in exchange for 20 per cent of his DJ business; an eight- and 10-yearold brother-and-sister from Halifax who want $10,000 for half of their miniature hockey-stick business; a trio of Toronto highschool students who want $30,000 for their party game based on the “nutritious value of beer;” a 15-year-old from Vancouver who wants $25,000 in exchange for 20 per cent of his secretive, under-the-radar ringtone phone business. (“As the human brain matures, it loses the ability to process and hear high frequency sounds.”)
It’s probably best left to social scientists and self-appointed arbiters of the moral good to decide whether it’s right to shove children in front of cameras for a reality-TV show. Dragons’ Den is designed to be entertainment, and that’s what it does and well. The show has held its own in the ratings against stiff time-period competition like Survivor and The X Factor, shows with bigger bankrolls and heavier promotion.
Teachable moments are one thing, but ratings are quite another. If recent TV history has taught us anything, it’s that Dragons’ Den is both a crowd-pleaser and a chart-topper when it comes to the ratings, and it’s ratings that drive the almighty buck. (CBC — 8 p.m.)