By Associated Press

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia–Seven years after shooting the first season of “Survivor” in Borneo, US television mogul Mark Burnett is returning to Asia in an alliance to develop and distribute new reality TV series and game shows, officials said Wednesday.

Burnett’s Los Angeles-based production firm and Asian leisure group Genting International plan to invest up to US$20 million in a joint venture that will “rewrite the answer to, ‘What’s there to watch on television?’ in Asia,” both sides said in a statement.

A new company, Mark Burnett Productions Asia, will take root on Singapore’s Sentosa island, where Genting plans to open a casino resort that will include a Universal Studios theme park, a giant oceanarium and film production facilities by 2010, the companies said.

“We’ve been doing business in and around Asia since our company was founded and we’ve been looking at ways to do more in this massive market,” Burnett said in the statement.

Production on the first series will hopefully start by early 2008, probably in Singapore, Krist Boo, an official at Genting’s Resorts World in Sentosa, told The Associated Press.

Burnett targets three to five productions for the first year, with a casino-related show being considered as one of the eventual fruits of the planned 10-year partnership, Boo said.

Other shows might be patterned after US productions that Burnett is developing, such as “Amne$ia,” a quiz show that tests contestants on questions from their own lives, and “Jingles,” a reality series that looks for writers of commercial ditties, Boo added.

Singapore’s Economic Development Board, which promotes investments in the city-state and put Mark Burnett Productions in touch with Genting in June, said the venture “reinforces our efforts to grow into an international media hub.”

It is also likely to lure more people to Genting’s planned US$3.4 billion Sentosa casino resort, because visitors can “participate in game shows, watch the programs being made and even interact with the stars of the show,” the companies said.

Besides “Survivor,” the latest season of which was filmed in China, Burnett has shaped other hits including “The Apprentice,” “Rock Star” and “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?”

Genting International is the overseas investment arm of Malaysian conglomerate Genting Bhd. It has developed resorts and casinos in Australia, Britain, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore, but the alliance with Burnett marks its first foray into television production.