Friday, March 17, 2006

NBC Offers Contest Challenge For TREASURE HUNTERS - New Reality Series Coming This Summer

Challenging SMS Text-messaging Component Provides Viewers with Opportunity for Real Riches

Every viewer can be a treasure hunter by going to NBC.com and signing up for an unique virtual adventure in NBC´s upcoming alternative series TREASURE HUNTERS (premiering this summer) that features teams of fortune-hunting competitors who will use folklore, fantasy and actual history as clues to solve a complex puzzle that will lead them to a treasure beyond their imagination.

TREASURE HUNTERS will offer a new world of integrated entertainment with a short-messaging service (SMS) - or text-messaging - component that allows participants to use their wits and answer questions on their mobile phones in order to gather a piece of each week´s puzzle via the internet. Like the television series, each piece is a special clue necessary to solve the puzzle for the treasure. In the SMS game, during each episode, two SMS questions are asked, and participants who text-in the correct answers will receive a code-word beamed to their phones. They will need the code-word to unlock two challenges on NBC.com - and with the set of "coordinates," they must first locate a tool related to the week´s episode that will then be used to complete a flash game.

Once finished, participants will receive a special clue that will lead them one step closer to the fortune. At the end of the series, participants will assemble all nine clues to solve the puzzle. Ten participants who answer correctly and quickly will then compete live online to find their own real hidden treasure. Non-SMS users can also play via NBC.com.

TREASURE HUNTERS collaborated with ASK.com to provide specific clue search functions for cast members while on the hunt. These same clues can be searched, downloaded and printed by the viewing audience throughout the hunt.

TREASURE HUNTERS is from Imagine Television and the producers of PROJECT GREENLIGHT, PROJECT RUNWAY and LAST COMIC STANDING. In the fast-paced adventure reality series, multi-player teams try to stay one step ahead of each other as they are mentally and physically challenged in their quest of a promised hidden treasure. The teams must avoid elimination as they travel to historically significant locations where they must decipher cryptic codes and puzzles, each with a clue leading them closer to solving the ultimate puzzle, and obtaining the coveted grand prize.