U.S.-based series puts ultra-wealthy entrepreneurs back on start-up mode. Reality TV has invaded the ultra-high-wealth realm. The British Broadcasting Corporation is looking for five centa-millionaires to compete against each other on a new reality show, to be aired in the U.S., called Millionaires' Challenge.

The series teams each millionaire with a penniless sidekick. The pairs go to different U.S. cities, each team with $10,000 of the producers’ money in hand, to develop a new business from scratch and without help from former business contacts. The team with the most profitable business at the end of three months wins the contest.

The show’s producers are looking for on-air participants with at least $100 million who are willing to devote three months to the project. The ideal participant would be someone “who wants individual publicity, publicity for their company, or anyone who has a business idea they want to showcase before the nation,” says Richard Kahler, the show’s consulting producer and president of Kahler Financial Group, a registered investment advisory in Rapid City, S.D.

But the producers aren’t focused solely on self-made Americans. Contestants can be “people from another country who have made it, the seasoned billionaire, the rags-to-riches story; even somebody who inherited [his] wealth,” says Kahler.

The selection of participants and taping is scheduled to begin shortly. The producers say the series will be aired on “a major network,” but they aren’t saying which one.

Anyone interested can email Kahler. –FWR

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