Investing In Your Celebrity…

A British television show has created a stockmarket out of celebrities. Viewers “give real celebrities a ‘share price’ and ‘invest’ in them by predicting whether their ‘stock’ will rise or fall. ‘Celebdaq’ (its awkward name stems from Nasdaq) was created for the British Broadcasting Corp. last summer as a Web site, but this year it has also become a controversial Friday night TV show on the new digital channel BBC3, which is targeting an audience aged 25 to 34. The show has the look of a financial news channel. The stock value of some 250 celebrities – actors, musicians, sportsmen and the famous-for-being-famous – crawls across the bottom of the screen like tickertape. Stars have their own abbreviations: SALHAY is Salma Hayek, SANBUL is Sandra Bullock.”