TV2 pins hopes on 'multi-night' prime time show

Rachel Lang has co-created a new TV2 show called Filthy Rich.

A promising new drama series has been commissioned by TV2, with the network to trial a different screening method for its prime time launch.

Instead of the traditional one-episode-per-week method that successful local dramas like Nothing Trival and Go Girls have embraced in the past, Filthy Rich will screen over multiple nights.

Twenty episodes of the NZ On Air-funded show, which follows three illegitimate children who discover they are related to one of New Zealand's wealthiest men, have been ordered.

It has been created by Outrageous Fortune's Rachel Lang and Go Girls' Gavin Strawhan, and will be produced by Shortland Street's Steven Zanoski.

TVNZ's General Manager of Commissioning and Acquisitions Andrew Shaw said Filthy Rich promised to deliver a "new way of storytelling".

"Its inception came from a desire to maximise potential TV audiences who have tended to swing towards outrageous, anything-goes shows, offering high stakes and shocking surprises," he said in a statement.

TV networks are increasingly moving away from one-episode-per-week formats, with local reality shows The Block and My Kitchen Rules screening several episodes of each series per week.

Overseas on-demand services like Netflix, which delivers new seasons of House of Cards and Orange is the New Black all at once, may also have influenced the decision.

Filthy Rich is just one of a number of local drama shows coming to screens soon, with Outrageous Fortune prequel West Side Story planned for TV3, a second series of Step Dave for TV2 and Edmund Hillary drama Hillary for TV One. Prime is currently screening its murder drama The Brokenwood Mysteries.

Production on Filthy Rich is due to begin soon, with a launch date yet to be set. NZ on Air has granted the show $8,125,000.

- nzherald.co.nz