BBC News Online: Entertainment: TV and Radio

UK to get 'deepest fears' reality show

Another gruelling TV contest, Survivor, is also to return

Fear Factor is already being broadcast in the US by NBC, where the winner gets £35,000 in prize money.

Fear Factor UK's executive producer Richard Hopkins told BBC News Online: "Contestants face things like being put in a pit, covered with scorpions and being made to lie there for three minutes.

"Then we do things like making them climb out on a ledge 32 floors up and walk along it until they get to a window."

'Fulfilling'

But Mr Hopkins rejected criticisms that the ordeals were degrading to contestants.

"All the US contestants so far have found it very fulfilling - it's not a negative and degrading show, and they've really enjoyed it."

All the contestants for the UK show will be physically and psychologically tested so that producers are show they can cope with the challenges.

The 13-part, one-hour series starts shooting in May in South Africa and could be on Sky One by the autumn.

Mr Hopkins said that Endemol would be taking great care not to actually endanger contestants.

"We're doing this out of Cape Town and we're looking very carefully at doing a stunt with sharks - but they're too unpredictable to work with, and anyway they might not turn up.

"We're getting people to feel like their worst nightmares are reality, but in truth we're controlling the whole thing," he said.