BAREN beats BIG BROTHER in sweden After only three days, Strix's own creation Baren has topped the international hit Big Brother. While ratings for Big Brother in Sweden have declined each day of its premiere week, Baren has maintained its viewing audience. Yesterday, 230,000 viewers watched Baren on TV3, while Big Brother on Kanal5 attracted 185,000 viewers. Baren, Sweden's only entirely interactive "docusoap," was broadcast for the first time on TV3 this past spring and summer. The premiere for the second season was on August 21. The show is about 18 people who compete to see who can run a bar best at Gamla Stans Bryggeri, a restaurant and watering hole in the old town of Stockholm. Each week, the TV and Internet viewing audiences vote out one contestant. The person remaining after the final, held the day before Christmas Eve, wins one million Swedish kronor. "This is a unique format developed by Strix and established by TV3 for TV and the Internet portal Everyday.com. We are quite satisfied with its success and see a lot of potential for the format outside Sweden," says Anna Bråkenhielm, president of Strix Television. Ratings for TV3 have been 50% higher than in the first season. At Everyday, new records are being set constantly, most recently on Sunday, September 3, when the site had 535,000 page views in one day. All web surfers can access all content at Everyday, including the revolutionary 360-degree cameras that were recently introduced. Users can individually control the cameras, available 24 hours a day, directing and zooming in to follow what is happening in the bar where the contestants work and in the apartment where they live. Strix Television is the most successful production company in the Modern Studios business area of Modern Times Group MTG AB containing all MTG companies that produce or distribute content. Strix Television was the first company in the world to produce a show in the Survivor format, Expedition: Robinson for Sveriges Television. Now Strix produces the show for TV3 in Norway and TV3 in Denmark, as well as for Germany and Holland/Belgium. Other units in Modern Studios produce Expedition: Robinson shows for Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. This autumn, Baren is being launched on TV3 in Norway, too, and several channels in other countries have expressed interest in the new format. For additional information, please contact; Hans-Holger Albrecht, president, Viasat Broadcasting, +44-1895 433 433 or Pelle Törnberg, CEO MTG, +46-8 562 000 50 Modern Times Group MTG AB's class A and B shares are listed on the OM Stockholm Exchange's O list (symbols: MTGA and MTGB) and on the Nasdaq National Market in New York (symbol: MTGNY). ------------------------------------------------------------ This information was brought to you by BIT http://www.bit.se The following files are available for download: http://www.bit.se/bitonline/2000/09/07/20000907BIT00990/bit0001.doc http://www.bit.se/bitonline/2000/09/07/20000907BIT00990/bit0002.pdf