Luxembourg, March 22, 2006 - With a mandate to develop and maintain programming efficiencies across its pan-European broadcasting group, SBS Broadcasting is proving to be adept at developing formats as a means to delivering on its objective. Cultivating formats which can be produced locally to ensure appeal for regional audiences but which also resonate with viewers across the Company's large broadcasting footprint, SBS's latest jewel is FC Nerds.
FC Nerds, a feel good reality format that centers around football, was devised by Nordisk Film. The concept readies 16 'nerds' for induction into the grueling world of professional football. Working hard to transform the group of stamp collectors, coach potatoes and technology nerds into physically fit athletes is an elite coach and a former national star player. Over the course of the 10 episode series, the nerds are put through rigorous training including help with diet, physical discipline, mental focus and appearance in their efforts to become real football players.
SBS's TV Norge licensed the FC Nerds format after noting its success in Denmark, the programme's first local production. Producing its own local version of the format, the Norwegian broadcaster made history after FC Nerds debuted last fall. Steadily rising in viewers and ratings with each episode, FC Nerds has garnered a 42.1hare in the overall demographic of people over 12 years old and a 58.8hare in the commercial target group of people 12 to 44 years. The show has also consistently averaged a weekly viewership of 676,000, making FC Nerds the highest rated locally produced programme in the history of TV Norge.
TV Norge's Program Director Eivind Landsverk said: ìFC Nerds is definitively the strongest format or programme of any genre produced locally in TV Norgeís history. I think this is simply because itís such an innovative, feel-good reality concept with very broad appeal. Based on the success of season 1 weíve already working on season 2 which is scheduled to run next fall.
The FC Nerds format, licensed through distributor Zodiac Television Worldwide, has also been licensed by SBS's Prima TV in Romania, where it is currently in production with a premiere date slated for April 2006.
