Telemundo & Fox World Joint Venture ‘Temptation Island’ For Hispanics.

Telemundo, the NBC-owned Spanish-language broadcast network, and Fox Television Studios have entered into a first-of-its kind primetime series commitment to bring new episodes of the hit reality series “Temptation Island” to Telemundo’s line-up for the 2002-2003 Nielsen television season. The deal was announced by James McNamara, president and chief executive officer of Telemundo and Daniela Welteke, Senior Vice President of Fox Television Studios’ international production entity Fox World.

The original English-language version of “Temptation Island,” developed for FOX Broadcasting Company by Rocket Science, became a pop culture smash upon its debut. The show ranked among network television’s top ten most popular series across every major audience group, including Adults 18-49 (#5), Adults 18-34 (#2) and teens (#3).

This groundbreaking deal marks the first time that an existing reality hit series will be created specifically for the U.S. Hispanic audience. The show will be cast with Hispanic couples and will emphasize their relationships.

According to Mr. McNamara “Our launch this year of the first ever reality genre series for Spanish-language television was a huge success. When we sought to expand our reality franchise we found ‘Temptation Island,’ a hit that has proved itself across cultural borders, to be the perfect fit. This will be the first relationship reality show in Spanish in the U.S.”

Added Fox World’s Ms. Welteke, “Over the past year or so, we’ve all learned a lot about how to take Mike (Darnell) and Rocket Science’s original vision of Temptation Island and translate it successfully to many cultures throughout the world. The network television audience here in the United States is hardly homogenous, and so it makes perfect sense for us to embrace that diversity as a strength and create a new adaptation that is specifically targeted to Telemundo’s Hispanic audience.”

Fox World will begin taping the initial 12 hour-long episodes early this summer on a tropical island. The series will bring together a total of four couples and 26 singles drawn from a nationwide search of local U.S. Hispanic communities.

Fox World has teamed with HP Media, its advertiser-supported programming partner, to create several major marketing relationships for the upcoming Telemundo version. HP Media is working with top agencies and Latino-oriented advertisers to secure their participation.

Fox World has spearheaded the local production of successful original versions of “Temptation Island” for major networks around the world. These include the United Kingdom (Sky One), Australia (Seven Network), Denmark (TVDK2), Norway (TV Norge), Sweden (Kanal 5), Germany (RTL), Belgium (VT4) and Portugal (TVI), and Fox World is currently in production on another two versions for France (TF1) and Brazil (SBT) as well.