Published:  00:00 Saturday - September 25, 2010

The first episode of Vietnam's Next Top Model, a television reality show that scouts potential female models, will be broadcast on the national entertainment channel VTV3 at 8pm on September 30.

At two auditions last month in Hanoi and HCM City, 18 girls were short-listed from more than 1,500 contestants aged between 18 and 25 from around the country.

The show will follow every move of the semi-finalists who will live together in a Cast House in HCM City for two months where they will be filmed 24/7.

They will be stripped of all means of communications to the outside world and will have no access to a mobile phone, computer, internet or newspaper.

On each show, a contestant will be eliminated after participating in challenges in different modelling skills like a photo-shoot, cat-walk and make-up.

Two finalists will be pitted against each other in the final gala show which will be aired live at the end of January.

This is the first season of the show, which is based on the show America's Next Top Model on CBS, a national TV network in the US.