TEL AVIV, Israel--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dori Media Group (“DMG” or “the Company”)(LSE:DMG), the international media company active in the field of television, with a focus on production, distribution, broadcasting and merchandising of Telenovela, announces that its first interactive reality control game show “uMan” has been sold to TV producer Endemol Italia. The show will be launched in April on Italia 1, the commercial TV channel on the Mediaset network.
"uMan", a cross-platform reality show where viewers control contestants’ every move inside a laboratory, has already been sold to 15 countries since its debut in July 2009 and is scheduled to air in Portugal and Brazil later in 2011.
The Italian version will have an interesting twist – all candidates will be ex-reality show contestants, who now have to get back to being "real" human beings, after all the time they have spent as rivals in other reality shows.
"We are very proud to collaborate with Endemol Italia", commented Nadav Palti, President & CEO of Dori Media Group. "We believe that our format can be easily adapted in different countries and we are very pleased with the debut of the Italian version. "uMan", developed by Dori New Media for Cellcom Israel, the leading Israeli cellular operator, is a unique product particularly suitable to prime time TV, while the audience can determine each and every action of the candidates through their mobile phones and the dedicated website”.
Adi Cohen, VP Marketing of Cellcom Israel added: "The ability of the format to touch people all over the world is tremendous. I am proud to see “uMan” at the heart of Italian prime-time and I am looking forward to seeing it aired in more countries.”
Orsetta Violante Balsamo, Head of Acquisitions in Endemol Italia, said: "Adapting the Israeli version of Uman into a studio-based prime-time show for the Italian viewers is challenging. We're extremely excited and hope our version will turn out to be valuable for many other European countries as well".
About uMan
’uMan’ (originally named in Israel ’Megudalim’) was launched in July 2009, broadcasting 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. ’uMan’ is a unique and innovative cross-platform control game, based on an idea developed by Dori New Media and produced for cell phones, internet and TV by Dori Media Darset with Cellcom Israel. Eight contestants entered a "Lab" for 21 days during which their every move was controlled by viewers while they had to score life-points to win. The viewers' control is constant and relates to every aspect of the contestants' lives; from how they live, and what they eat, to what they wear and even who they are allowed to develop intimacy with. ’uMan’ became an instant success in Israel, where more than 7 million viewer votes were cast online in 21 days. During this period, 700,000 unique users (out of a total population of 7 million) visited the website, many of whom visited more than once a day and spent 12 minutes on the average in the website. uMan is a modular and very flexible format and can be easily adapted to varied countries and cultures.
For further information on Dori Media Group, please visit our website on www.dorimedia.com.
Dori Media Group is an international group of media companies, located in Israel, Switzerland, Argentina and the US. The group produces and distributes TV and New Media content, broadcasts various TV channels and operates video-content internet sites. The group owns approximately 5,130 TV hours, more than 5,000 clips of 3 minutes on average, 120 - 9 minute webisodes and around 556 1-5 minute cellular episodes of Telenovelas and daily series that it sells to a wide variety of audiences in more than 80 countries. It owns and operates two telenovela channels, Viva and Viva Platinum broadcasted on all Israeli multi-channel platforms and via the co-branded internet site offering telenovelas to Israeli surfers through Walla.com. Dori Media Paran and Dori Media Darset produce top-end series as well as daily dramas for the Israeli and international markets. Dori New Media develops and produces formats specially tailored for the internet and cellular platforms, and realizes new opportunities enabled by the new technologies. Dori Media Spike packages, produces and operates the main movie channels on the Israeli cable TV platform and general entertainment channels on all Israeli TV multi-channel platforms. In Indonesia and Malaysia, the company operates the Televiva Vision 2 channel that is devoted to telenovelas and Baby TV Vision 3 for toddlers, in addition to the Ginx gamers’ channel. Ginx is localized and broadcasted to Turkey as well. Novebox operates an ad-based VOD and SVOD commercial internet site targeted at the Hispanic and Latin American audience offering a variety of shows and movies. The group is traded on the London Stock Exchange where its symbol is DMG. For more information on Dori Media, visit our corporate website at http://www.dorimedia.com/.