July 14 (Bloomberg) -- A new Japanese export is luring U.S. consumers: Television game shows that inflict pain, suffering and humiliation for a laugh.

Contestants on ABC Inc.'s ``I Survived a Japanese Game Show'' had to battle through a wind tunnel while opponents hurled trash at them and were smashed against a car windshield while dressed as a bee. The show ranked 10th on its June debut with 8 million viewers, according to weekly ratings from Nielsen Co.

``It was one of the most absurd things we've ever put on the air, so that was certainly a risk,'' said John Saade, senior vice president of alternative programming at ABC. ``There's a couple of agents now who have jetted off to Japan and are buying up formats left and right.''

U.S. network executives hope Japanese-style programs will match the success of British imports including ``Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?'', the international quiz show which production house Celador International Ltd. sold for 106 million pounds ($209 million) in 2006. Reality and game-based shows took nine of the top 20 spots in Nielsen's latest rankings.

Although ``I Survived'' looks like a Japanese program, the concept and games were all original creations, Arthur Smith, the show's executive producer, said in a telephone interview.

Tokyo-based Fuji Television Network Inc. licensed its first primetime network program in the U.S. with Fox's ``Hole in the Wall.'' The show, set to air this fall, requires participants to contort their bodies to pass through openings in moving walls or be pushed into a pool of water. The game is a regular feature on Fuji's ``Tunnels'' variety show in Japan.

`Scramble for Formats'

``We've never been so busy; there's a real scramble among foreign production houses to option our formats,'' said Toru Kawai, senior director of international sales at Fuji TV, which first had success in the U.S. with its ``Iron Chef'' series. ``Our foreign licensing business is opening up doors to Hollywood.''

The Food Network has been producing a licensed version of ``Iron Chef'' since 2004 and the latest incarnation helped the channel lift first-quarter primetime viewership by 13 percent. Fuji TV last week sold rights to ``Iron Chef'' to U.S. entertainment broker William Morris Agency for use in stage shows.

Kawai said licensing revenues make up less than 1 percent of Fuji TV's $5.4 billion in annual sales, although that could change if a program becomes a hit on a major U.S. network.

Fuji TV reported a 1.2 percent drop in sales for the latest financial year, as profit slumped 37 percent amid declining advertising income. The company forecast another drop in revenue this year.

Japan Inspiration

``I Survived a Japanese Game Show'' puts a group of Americans through so-called variety show games for a chance to win $250,000 at the end of the seven-episode season.

The show helped ABC, a unit of Walt Disney Co., boost the number of viewers in the show's timeslot by 2.6 million compared with the same nights the previous year, ABC spokesman Jonathan Hogan said in an e-mail.

ABC looked to Japan for inspiration in 1989 when it remade a segment from a Tokyo Broadcasting System Inc. show into ``America's Funniest Home Videos,'' a program that invites the audience to send in embarrassing moments caught on tape. It's now the longest-running reality show in the U.S., ABC's Saade said.

Clips of Japanese variety shows on Youtube.com and other video-sharing Web sites have sparked an international following, Smith, Saade and Kawai said. However, game-show adaptations for U.S. viewers will not include some stunts seen in Japanese versions. ``I Survived'' producer Smith said ABC's standards and practices rules prohibit many of them.

Comedians

Netto Buro, or The Boiling Bath, is a segment of a Nippon Television Network Corp. show where participants see how long they can last in a tub of scalding water before jumping out and packing snow on their bodies. Another program had six contestants place their feet on hot irons, competing to see who could hold out the longest as their skin started to smoke.

One difference between Japan's game shows and ABC's version is players in Japan are usually professional comedians who are more focused on getting laughs, often from an embarrassing loss, than winning the game. The American adaptation pits a group of people against each other for money.

``There's a bit of a watering down to the show,'' said Gavin Purcell, who operates a Web site called TVinJapan.com that he says receives more than 4,000 hits a day, double the number from a year ago. ``You lose some of that comedy by trying to couch it in this weird American format.''

``Detective Knight Scoop'' is a program from the Osaka region, the home of Japan's largest comic stable, Yoshimoto Kogyo. The show features a group of comedians who are sent out to solve so-called mysteries, such as if a leather shoe can be made into a dinner by sautéing it in bacon. The consensus opinion of the contestants was it had a ``shoe-y'' taste. Another test determined that a five-year-old will indeed cry if attacked by a man in a zombie suit.

Purcell says there will be more exports of Japanese humor.

``You don't have to be Japanese to appreciate someone getting hit in the face with cream pies,'' he said. ``Slapstick is always good.''

To contact the reporter for this story: Patrick Rial in Tokyo at prial@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: July 13, 2008 20:30 EDT