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TVNZ says it has already bought screening rights to the new series of the BBC TV reality show, Castaway, which started filming on Great Barrier Island this week.
The first episode will be shown on BBC TV in Britain tomorrow morning (NZ time), but a spokeswoman for TVNZ said the timing of its NZ screening had not yet been decided.
The 13 "castaways" 50km from downtown Auckland are all Britons, and cover a disparate range of occupations and character traits.
With ages ranging from 19 to 64, the castaways include an occupational therapist, a mother-of-four, a recovering drug and alcohol addict and a former Royal Marine.
In the first episode, newlywed lap-dancer Erica Hurst, 22, is expected to show off her Thai boxing skills. A BBC spokesman said: "Erica ... once spent two weeks in South America living in very basic conditions with no electricity.
Another woman, Gemma Zinyama, 22, has been working as a temp and said she hoped to be able to brush up on her cooking and cleaning skills during the three months contestants will spend on Great Barrier Island.
The contestants have to fend for themselves, build their own shelters and grow and collect their own food.
The TV show is based on a "social experiment" in 2000 when the BBC marooned 36 people for a year on the Scottish island of Taransay.
- NZPA
