Graham Norton and Gurin deals for Zeal TV

With an MBO underway, UK format outfit Zeal Television is forging ahead with new partnerships with producers, which include picking up international rights to the UK's chatshow hit So Graham Norton.

Zeal – currently owned by ailing Sportsworld – has all rights outside the UK to the award-winning risqué format, which goes out late-night on Channel 4 in the UK.

So Television, the production set up by the show's professionally camp presenter Graham Norton, is supplying Zeal with a research package for international versions of the show, which will be produced in association with So TV.

The chatshow has various elements, including spots where members of the public divulge sexual secrets about themselves, and a guest spot where celebrities are treated to Norton's brand of humour. There's also an internet spot, in which Norton winds up various web weirdoes – usually American – over the phone.

{We've also taken global rights to a new format from Phil Gurin, { Zeal's director of international sales Andrea Jackson told C21. {24-Hours is a challenge show where two teams are flown to a city to complete a huge challenge in one day.{

Examples include finding a wannabe-wed couple and arranging their wedding, or organising a class reunion party. The Gurin Company is selling the format into the US, while Zeal will shop it elsewhere.

Finally, Zeal has picked up rights outside France to Diamond Quest, a challenge format from indie producer API. The format involves {training contestants in acrobatic and mental skills and flying them off to a challenging terrain and seeing how they put their training into practise,{ said Jackson.

Zeal will be down at MipTV shopping these formats, as well as two recent ones from Chatterbox: Demolition, a format being produced for Bravo in the UK, and What's it Worth?. The second format is similar but unrelated to Stone Stanley's What Would it Take?

The distributor is currently negotiating a management buy-out from ailing parent Sportsworld that will see it owned by Sportsworld's ceo Peter Christiansen, Jackson and Zeal's md Mark Linsey.