Brings on board Bradley Walsh as presenter

London, 15 May 2007. Talent Television, a wholly owned subsidiary of Talent Group plc, has been commissioned by ITV1 to produce a brand new primetime special ‘No. 1 Soap Fan’. The 60-minute event will be presented by leading actor/comedian and former soap star Bradley Walsh.

Commissioned by ITV’s Controller of Music and Events Guy Freeman, ‘No. 1 Soap Fan’ will be executive produced by Talent Television’s Creative Director John Kaye Cooper and will be produced by Nichola Hegarty. It was created in-house at Talent Television by Stuart Shawcross and Nichola Hegarty.

Combining a quiz show format with archive footage and celebrity guests, ‘No. 1 Soap Fan’ will be a celebration of the nation’s favourite soaps including Coronation Street, Emmerdale, EastEnders, Hollyoaks and Neighbours.

After a nationwide search, 250 of Britain’s biggest and most obsessed soap fans will converge on the studio where some of them will be randomly chosen from the studio audience to take part in a number of soap-based games and quizzes. Some of the lucky contestants will be quizzed by their favourite characters and the winner of each game will take part in a grand final where one of them will be crowned ‘Number 1 Soap Fan’.

This is the latest special event commission for Talent Television which is renowned for producing live interactive shows such as the BBC’s ‘Test the Nation’ and last year’s ITV1 show ‘Viewer of the Year’.

John Kaye Cooper, Creative Director at Talent Television says: “‘No. 1 Soap Fan’ is a fun, fast-paced quiz for the whole family. We are delighted to get Bradley Walsh at the helm as his wit and humour promise to make it an entertaining experience for all soap fans at home.”

For further information please contact:

Janet Balmforth at Blueprint PR
Tel: +44 (0) 208 868 0511
E Mail: janet@blueprintpr.co.uk

Notes to editors:

Talent Television (part of Talent Group plc) is a leading independent UK format creator and producer of innovative television, video and interactive programming. The Company's reputation for prime-time entertainment programming is unrivalled. The “Test the Nation” series for BBC1 is now well established as a scheduling event which combines the excitement of live network television with state-of-the-art interactive television and web technology.

Talent produces a wide range of entertainment and factual programming for a broad spectrum of terrestrial and cabsat broadcasters in the UK, US and worldwide. Current credits include reality documentary “Corkscrewed”, co-produced with LA-based Magic Pictures Inc for Sky One and Fox Reality, and controversial documentaries “The Man With 80 Wives” and “9/11: The Curse of Compensation” for Channel 4. Talent was also a pioneer in reality television with “The Villa”, which was first produced in 1999 for Sky One.

Talent Kids, the children's division, develops high quality, innovative programming for kids. “Best of Friends” is a hit breakthrough reality entertainment format for 6-11 year olds produced for CBBC, now in its third year with over 55 episodes produced, and Talent also works with Cartoon Network producing the live-action sequences for its innovative hit format “Skatoony”, a live-action/cartoon game show now in its second series.