Channel 5 launches Home & Away Reporter search

Channel 5 is kicking off a new competition linked to Home and Away, to find TV's hottest new presenter. Home and Away: Bay Reporter will give one lucky Brit the chance to jet off to Sydney, Australia, with a Channel 5 film crew to present two fanzine shows from behind the scenes of the popular Aussie soap. The winner will be given exclusive access to the cast of Summer Bay and reveal the secrets of Home and Away both on set in Sydney and on location in nearby sun-drenched Palm Beach. The competition is open to anyone aged 18 or over and UK residents have four weeks to upload entry videos to a dedicated contest page on Channel 5's YouTube channel. All entries will be watched by a Channel 5 panel, who will select and announce the top five in late May. The public will then vote for their favourite via the Channel 5 YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/user/demandfive. The winner will be announced on OK! TV at the end of May and will fly to Australia in early June to film their shows. The two 30-minute shows will be broadcast in December and could help one ordinary member of the public launch a career in TV presenting. Greg Barnett, Channel 5's commissioning editor of entertainment, daytime and soaps, said: "This is the opportunity of a lifetime. I'm thrilled to be able to offer UK viewers the platform to launch a possible career as a TV presenter. If you're not a fan of Home and Away already, now's the time..." Full details on how to enter will be revealed on Channel 5's OK! TV on Monday at 6.25pm.

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Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix.

An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.