[James]

The reality TV show that YOU would control

Last updated at 17:36pm on 22nd December 2006

The team that gave the world Big Brother is working on a new format for a reality TV show that will allow viewers and anyone with a computer or mobile phone to get directly involved.

Endemol's new concept show, to be called iLand, will involve abandoning a contestant on a desert island with only a laptop with broadband which they would use to build their own community.

The audience will vote for people to join them or leave. The contestant will rely on the community back home to help them solve puzzles, tasks, work out how to make the most of the island and recruit fellow islanders.

Endemol UK director of interactive media, Peter Cowley, said: "You might recruit a carpenter because you need to build a house or a policeman because the island needs policing but you can also evict them."

He said that the benefit over virtual reality concepts such as Second Life would be that iLand is a real community.

Mr Cowley said: "Whereas Second Life is a virtual community, this is a real community but influenced and controlled by a virtual community back at home."

While iLand has been conceived as a broadband reality format drawing on online communication tools such as Yahoo! Answers, instant messaging and email, it could extend to TV and mobile if the right sponsors can be attracted.

Mr Cowley added: "The sheer scale of it would require it to be both a commission in the US and the UK.

"We certainly see this as a potentially global proposition."

Endemol is currently in negotiations with Yahoo and other companies but no launch date has been set.

The first contestant will be signed up via websites such as MySpace and will in turn get a say in who joins them.

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