Zeal rolls out Singing Bee worldwide

Zeal Entertainment has secured a long list of commissions for NBC's reality hit Singing Beewith local versions already in production in Australia and Greece.

Formats specialist Zeal Entertainment has secured a long list of commissions for NBC's reality hit Singing Beewith local versions already in production in Australia and Greece.

Created by The Gurin Company and Juma Entertainment, the singing competition has been the top rated show of the summer on NBC and has attracted strong interest from international broadcasters since its launch at this year's Mip TV.

• In Australia, Nine Network is in production on eight half-hour episodes which will premiere in October.
  
• Alpha TV in Greece will begin a run of 30 x 60 minute episodes this autumn.
  
• Spain's Antena 3 has commissioned an undisclosed number of episodes, also set to air this autumn.
  
• VTM in Belgium and Screen 1 in Iceland have both commissioned runs of 8 x 60 minutes.
  
• SBT in Brazil has commissioned 52 half-hour episodes.
  
• Rounding out the list of broadcasters to pick up the format are Show TV in Turkey, Caracol in Colombia and TV3 in Sweden, all of which are keeping details under wrap.

Negotiations for commissions are also ongoing in New Zealand, Italy, France, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Russia, Israel and Holland, where the show is under option.

'Singing Bee is hottest format in the market right now' said Zeal managing director Andrea Jackson.

'It has been number one in its timeslot for every episode broadcast with phenomenal ratings, so there has been enormous interest from broadcasters all over the world'

NBC, meanwhile, has already picked up a second series due to broadcast from the end of September.