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NBC is looking to adapt the hit British series "I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here!"

The network is in negotiations with Granada America for another stateside reincarnation of the U.K. format, first tackled by ABC six years ago when it launched a short-lived U.S. version.

Details on the potential NBC version of "I'm a Celebrity" are still under wraps. The U.K. original has celebrities living in harsh tropical conditions and competing in challenges to earn rewards such as food and other basic comforts. One by one, the players are evicted.

NBC is said to be looking at a summer launch for the Granada-produced "I'm a Celebrity," which is expected to recieve an order for at least a dozen episodes. Sources said the network is considering running the show as a weekday strip the way it airs in the U.K.

The reality show is right...

Granada America has named Katrina Moran as executive vp of its newly formed digital division, CEO David Gyngell said. Moran joins Granada America Digital Media, the new branch of the U.S.-based production entity owned by U.K. media company ITV. At the U.K.'s ITV Prods., Moran was credited with spearheading revenue initiative from new-media platforms as well as the financial success of such hit U.K. shows as I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here, Dancing on Ice and Gameshow Marathon, which is soon to launch in the U.S. on CBS. She will report to Gyngell.

ABC is embarking on a Life of Luxury with a one-hour special back-door pilot hosted by celebrity lifestyle guru Robin Leach. The show takes an inside look at the lavish lifestyles of the young and wealthy, with the pilot featuring rap mogul Master P's Gucci helicopter and Louis Vuitton Ferrari, a tour of Virgin tycoon Richard Branson's Caribbean Island and the world's richest teens. It was Leach's stint last season on ABC's reality series I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! -- where he was the first contestant booted off -- that led to Life of Luxury.

Comedy is king on ABC's new fall lineup, while reality shows are more akin to knights called up to do battle in particularly treacherous time slots. ABC chairman Lloyd Braun and entertainment president Susan Lyne admitted Tuesday that the network went overboard in the second half of this season by serving up a slew of unscripted series -- Are You Hot? All-American Girl, The Family, I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here! etc. -- most of which tanked in the ratings. The 2003-04 season scheduled unveiled by Braun and Lyne at Radio City Music Hall on Tuesday afternoon is chockablock with sitcoms, including four newcomers and the return of the TGIF mantle for Friday nights. "We've devoted enormous resources to our comedy development the past two years," Braun said during the presentation, noting that it was the highest number of comedies the network has programmed in four years. He added that the network hoped to expand further to 12 by the end of the 2003-04 campaign.

Facing stiff competition in the celebrity-reality genre, E! Entertainment will bolster its schedule with 12 new series this year. The cable channel responsible for The Anna Nicole Show has seen its programming specialty co-opted everywhere, from broadcast series like ABC's I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here! to fellow cable nets like VH1 with The Fabulous Life. The new dozen, shepherded to air by E!'s new development division, refocuses the network on A-list stars rather than the figures on the fringes of showbiz -- as seen in The Michael Essany Show and Star Dates. Both of those first-year series were renewed; the verdict on Anna is still to be determined.

CBS is crying foul over a reality show it says rips off Survivor. An attorney for the network wants ABC to put the brakes on I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here! -- in which celebrities will compete in grueling physical challenges in the Australian outback. A British version from U.K.-based producer Granada became a hit during the summer. ABC executives planned to schedule their show over 15 consecutive nights, most likely during the February sweep (HR 9/18). Last week, an attorney representing CBS and Survivor Prods. -- a company jointly owned by the network and Survivor creator Mark Burnett -- demanded that ABC and Granada drop their plans for the American show, arguing that Celebrity "blatantly and intentionally" copies Survivor, now in its fifth cycle on CBS. In a Sept. 25 letter, New York attorney Lewis Clayton wrote that Celebrity "incorporates essential elements of 'Survivor, ' " including harsh, remote locations; campfire and tribal council settings; and physical challenges.