Finnish gross-out TV show The Dudesons to have US version in summer

Movie to premiere before that

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The Dudesons TV Show, a Finnish-made comedy programme with a format similar to that of Jackass, is to get cable television distribution in the United States.
      The cable channel Spike TV has agreed to show eight episodes of the programme. The contract also has an option for more broadcasts.
      Spike, which is part of MTV Networks, is accessible in about 90 million US households. The main target audience are men aged 18 to 34. The channel shows such popular police series as CSI and Shield.
     
The Dudesons (or Duudsons as they are known in Finnish) will not disclose the exact amount of money that they are getting from the deal, which is nevertheless believed to be the highest ever for a Finnish TV export.
      Previously, the only Finnish TV programme to get any significant US distribution has been the police detective series Raid, which was shown last year on a local Washington station, with about four million potential viewers.
      "The price is such that I would never have dreamed of it as a little kid playing in my sandbox. It is at least ten times the size of Finnish TV budgets", says Jukka Hildén of the Dudesons team.
      The new TV series will be in English. The prime-time episodes will include old footage that has been broadcast on Finnish television, but new material will also be included.
     
The first episode will be broadcast on July 6th, a month after the US premiere of The Dudesons Movie.
      Hildén feels that Spike is a more appropriate channel for The Dudesons than the parent channel MTV, whose target audience is younger, and which therefore imposes tighter censorship on the content.


Links:
  The Dudesons website

Helsingin Sanomat