WORLD: MEDIA ANALYSIS - Nokia raises reality TV stakes with pan- Euro fashion series.

Nokia sees Fashion House as a potential pilot for the future.

Fashion House, the Nokia-funded reality-TV show, was beamed on to TV screens in Italy and the UK last week, although Swedes, Danes and Norwegians will catch their first glimpse in November.

It can't claim to be the first pan-European advertiser-funded deal - Gillette World of Sport, for instance, has been syndicated across the Continent for 18 years. But its backers say Fashion House has taken the format to another level in terms of cross-country collaboration between Nokia marketing teams, several TV producers, three local broadcasters as well as creatives and media advisers.

FBC, the Rome-based TV production firm that invented the show, says the difference between Fashion House and its ad-funded predecessors is that it was designed to be a truly European programme instead of originating in one country and being syndicated or adapted to local markets.

Fashion House stars 20 budding young designers from the UK, Italy, Sweden and France competing over six weeks to produce the best collection from a house in Rome. Viewers judge their creations by voting, Big Brother-style, via their phones to save or evict them at the end of each week.

The show began airing live in the UK on 26 September on Channel 4 and simultaneously on Italy's terrestrial version of MTV. Because Scandinavian viewers covered by the broadcaster TV3 will not see Fashion House until November, they have a different voting system where they try to guess who was evicted in the previous weeks.

It's partly the show's 'Europeaness' that appealed to Nokia. 'Our marketing is pan-European, so it makes sense to be present in several countries.