Hatch of 'Survivor' May Have TV Job

LOS ANGELES (AP) â€” ``Survivor'' winner Richard Hatch may have a new TV role as host of a game show in which losing players are kicked off with a curt ``You are the weakest link.'' <br><br>NBC,

Friday, January 12th 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

LOS ANGELES (AP) â€” ``Survivor'' winner Richard Hatch may have a new TV role as host of a game show in which losing players are kicked off with a curt ``You are the weakest link.''

NBC, playing catchup with other networks in the reality TV genre, shot a pilot Thursday with Hatch in London for a possible U.S. version of the British show ``The Weakest Link.''

A second version was shot Thursday with the host of the original program, Anne Robinson. NBC is weighing using one show in prime time and distributing the other in syndication.

Robinson's acerbic approach has made her a star in England. NBC is hoping that Hatch, who outmaneuvered fellow contestants on CBS' ``Survivor'' to claim the $1 million prize, is her equal.

``The Weakest Link,'' a big hit in Britain, is a rapid-fire team quiz in which, after each round, the team votes to evict the least effective member of the group.

The black-clad Robinson is notoriously scathing to the guests and dismisses the losers with the phrase ``You are the weakest link. Goodbye.'' Both a daily version and a weekly prime-time version air.

NBC said it will decide whether to proceed with the shows based on the outcome of the pilots.

The network's failure to jump on the reality bandwagon that has served CBS and ABC (``Who Wants to Be a Millionaire'') so well has haunted NBC. Last month, its programming head, Garth Ancier, was replaced.

Hatch, a management consultant who was fond of parading nude on the ``Survivor'' island, was anointed one of the most marketable of the players even before he won.

He had a lucrative book deal with St. Martin's Press but it collapsed last fall, reportedly because of CBS' veto power over the kind of tell-all book the publisher expected.

A number of Hatch's fellow contestants have earned TV time. Rudy Boesch, the former Navy SEAL, had a small guest role on the military drama ``JAG'' this fall, while others have appeared on such shows as ``Hollywood Squares'' and ``Extra.''