Game for a divorce

TV marriage: Darva Conger and Rick Rockwell married as strangers

An American TV network is searching for six couples who plan to divorce to take part in a game show offering the chance to win cash and each other's possessions.

The ''no-holds-barred'' show, called I Want A Divorce, is the idea of Fox TV, which earlier this year sparked controversy with a programme that offered marriage to a multi-millionaire as a prize.

All smiles: Conger and Rockwell soon separated

Darva Conger married Rick Rockwell, a complete stranger, after being picked out from 50 other contestants on Who wants to marry a multi-millionaire?

The couple soon separated and Conger, a former nurse, filed for divorce and later posed nude for Playboy magazine.

"I think there will be a great deal of voyeuristic fun because divorce is such a national phenomenon and people maybe don't take marriage as seriously as they used to,'' said Peter Isacksen, an executive producer for the show's creators, Future Mainstream Productions.

A two-hour special is expected to be broadcast in the US in February next year.

It is not going to be Jerry Springer

Producer Peter Isacksen

The competing couples will be questioned on how much they know about the other person's life and will be given a chance to tell their side of the divorce story.

Isacksen, said that the tone would be light-hearted and without rancour.

"It is not going to be Jerry Springer.

"I don't want to see people throwing chairs at each other.

"The tone of the show is not going to be anything that anyone is embarrassed about."

The programme does have a few key provisos - the divorce must not be final, and competing couples must not have children under the age of 18.