Teenage Kidnap Victim to Host TV Show

6 Dec, 2007— -- Austrian kidnap victim Natascha Kampusch, who spent eight years in a windowless cell where her only outside contact was a radio, now hits the airwaves with her own show.

Kampusch, now 19, will host a TV talk show starting early next year.

Her media manager, Wolfgang Brunner, told ABC NEWS.com, "Natascha is very excited about this project. She is planning to invite famous people, but also very ordinary people, just anyone who has a story to tell, to come to her show for an open conversation. She does not just want to skim the surface and ask the obvious questions but will want to go deeper."

The show will be seen on in Austria on Puls 4, a private TV network, which begins airing its full-time program in February 2008.

Christina Patzl, Puls 4 spokeswoman, said, "We are shooting a pilot with Miss Kampusch and we're looking forward to do this show with her. It will probably be a 30-minute show, which should be attractive to our audience, which is fairly young. Our target group is viewers aged 12-49, and the majority are female. We expect our audience to be very interested in Natascha's show."

Kampusch's escape from her kidnapper in August 2006 made for headlines and front-page coverage all over the world.

In a series of TV interviews with Austrian TV ORF, the former kidnap victim talked eloquently about her ordeal. She came across as a very articulate, well-educated young woman, though she obviously never enjoyed any tutoring while in captivity. The only way she could educate herself during her years in the cell was to listen to a radio her kidnapper had given her.

The man had snatched her on her way to school when she was 10 years old. She was forced by her kidnapper to live without any contacts to the outside world in a windowless cell beneath a garage for eight years until her dash to freedom last year.

Her kidnapper, a single middle-aged man, committed suicide when he found out she had escaped from her prison.

In her TV interviews with ORF, she has expressed her desire to live a "normal" life, and she has decided "to work in TV rather than just be a TV product," according to Brunner.

Martin Blank, Puls 4 TV's managing director, told ABC NEWS.com, "It goes without saying that we will closely work with Miss Kampusch and her counselors. We're fully aware of the special responsibility we have toward her, and we're fully committed to a fair and balanced partnership with Miss Kampusch."

Kampusch, who has been reunited with her family, is still seeing counselors to help her overcome her painful experience but is said to be doing fine.

She has also just launched her own Web site, www.natascha-kampusch.at.