Sony Entertainment Television Asia has acquired the India rights for ITV's superhit show 'I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here'.

The programme will be co-produced by ITV Studios subsidiary Silverback and an Indian company, MidiTech, in a deal brokered through ITV Global Entertainment.

This latest move is being seen as an effort for the Asian broadcaster to ramp up its weekday programming line-up.

The Indian version will be shot in Hindi at Malaysia's Taman Negara rainforest. A line-up of celebrities and the show's presenters will be announced later this month.

Recently American broadcaster NBC signed a deal with ITV for the same format, as well as Swedish channel TV4.

Remy Blumenfeld, director of global formats at ITV Global Entertainment, told MediaGuardian, "Following on from our recent NBC USA debut, we're delighted to be announcing I'm a Celebrity for Sony in India.

"The deal is a superb example of our newly created co-production strategy, which provides our broadcast partners with unrivalled expertise and support in producing and leveraging the very best opportunities from our portfolio of proven hits. We're confident that the show will deliver big audiences for Sony, similar to its huge success in the UK."

The show will broadcast five nights a week for two months when it replaces talent show 'Entertainment Ke Liye Kuch Bhi Karega' in the 22:00 slot. So far, the series has generated a TVR of 1.3 according to audience measuring body TAM.

'Entertainment Ke Liye Kuch Bhi Karega' was launched late last month as part of Sony TV's strategy to reposition the channel. However, latest data has shown the channel has struggled to make any inroads so far. It remains in the fifth spot even after the second week of its relaunched prime time. Latest data shows, the channel is hovering at 90 GRPs, seven points below its previous week's 97 GRPs. The fiction as well as non-fiction shows failed to improve much. Among the new fictions, 'Bhaskar Bharti' was the top rated show with a peak TVR of 1 while 'Chittod Ki Rani Padmini Ka Johar' (0.5 TVR), 'Ladies Special' (0.9 TVR) and 'Palampur Express' (0.7 TVR) failed to grab the eyeballs.

In the UK, 'I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here' has been a runaway success since its debut in 2002.

Sony TV UK has confirmed to BizAsia.co.uk that the show will be telecast simultaneously in the UK from Monday 6th July.

Related link:
Sony TV unveils new shows and on-air look