Popstars makes a German comeback

RTL II has ordered a local version of Popstars, one of the first wave of pop reality competition shows.

The show originally went out on RTL2 in 2000 and ran for two seasons and the German free-to-air broadcaster has now brought it back.

The German show will be produced by Banijay-owned prodco Brainpool and the format deal was struck by Banijay International, which owns the format.

Andreas Bartl, RTL2 managing director, said: “We are delighted to see the return of Popstars – one of television’s most popular music brands – to its home station in Germany. We’re looking forward to working with Brainpool on the new version of this great talent search format.”

Brainpool’s Jörg Grabosch added: “We are very pleased to be going back to our roots with RTL II – our absolute ideal partner for the new Popstars. The original talent search format has arrived back where it belongs.”

In Germany, the show also ran on RTL’s arch-rival ProSieben for seven years.

The RTL deal is the latest for the talent format, which was originally created by Australian prodco Screentime. Banijay has recently struck deals with Kanal 5 in Denmark, Star TV in Turkey and D8 in France.