BIKINI babes and hunks in trunks are coming to the BBC, while C4 will welcome Betty Suarez, whose looks - or lack of them - and bad fashion sense make her unlikely material to work in the fashion world. And Sky One will go behind the doors in an exclusive Palm Springs community courtesy of Dawson's Creek creator Kevin Williamson.

This promise of things to come follows the LA Screenings, when the US studios' show off and hopefully sell their new series to overseas channels.

British viewers will get a chance to see what buyers got excited about in coming months as the imports are unveiled on our screens.

Competition to snag the hot new shows was keen. Five has done well in the past with CSI and its spin-offs, House and Prison Break. C4's Desperate Housewives and Lost have proved good buys too.

Perhaps the biggest surprise is the BBC opting to buy teen drama Falcon Beach, described by one executive as "a great example of a fun, sexy and compelling young adult drama".

The Beeb will screen all 26 one-hour episodes of the first two seasons on BBC1 or BBC2 next year.

Falcon Beach, featuring a cast of impossibly tanned and beautiful teens, is filmed at Winnipeg Beach in Manitoba, Canada, and follows the adventures, amorous and otherwise, of a group of young folk living in a small waterfront community.

If the series sounds like Baywatch crossed with The O.C. then Betty The Ugly offers a touch more originality and a glamorous producer, Salma Hayek, known from her Hollywood movie appearances. The cast also includes someone familiar from British TV - actress Ashley Jensen, who was Ricky Gervais's sidekick in his BBC comedy Extras.

The comedy-drama series is based on the popular Colombia telenovela Betty La Fea. The leading character is an unattractive, yet efficient secretary working at a fashion magazine.

The publisher (played by Alan Dale, formerly Jim Robinson in Neighbours) employs her as his womanising son's assistant, mostly because she's the only woman in NYC who Daniel won't sleep with.

But the odd couple prove a formidable duo on the fashion publishing scene. America Ferrera and Eric Mabius star.

Betty The Ugly was one of four much-sought after series picked up by C4 at the LA Screenings. Another, Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip, marks the TV comeback of Friends star Matthew Perry in a series from West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin, in which Perry guest starred.

One of the regulars from that series, Bradley Whitford - who won an Emmy as White House aide Josh Lyman - stars with Perry in the new series, which is set behind the scenes of a fictional TV sketch comedy variety show.

Five, ITV and Sky were all rumoured to be interested in buying the series.

Former EastEnders star Sean Maguire, who's made a successful career on the other side of the Atlantic since leaving Albert Square, features in the new comedy The Class, from Friends co-creator David Crane.

This follows the lives of a group of twentysomethings from the same class brought back together for a surprise reunion after 20 years.

C4 has also bought Brothers And Sisters, a drama teaming Ally McBeal's Calista Flockhart and Six Feet Under's Rachel Griffiths as siblings dealing with the death of their father.

Sky One picked up Hidden Palms, which features two former stars of The O.C. among the cast, Taylor Handley and Michael Cassidy.

The show has Johnny Miller (Handley) becoming an alcoholic at 16 following his father's suicide. Back from rehab, his mother remarries and forces him to move to an exclusive community in Palm Springs, where there's a secret behind every front door.

Lovespring International - also picked by Sky - is a comedy made for women's cable network Lifetime. The series has a neurotic bunch of relationship consultants trying to find love for their clients while failing miserably to find it for themselves.

Executive producer Eric McCormack is better known for his appearances in front of the camera in comedy series Will And Grace. Sky One's new programming director Richard Woolfe says: "Any show whose pilot has a woman paying $10,000 to have her dog deflowered deserves a primetime slot on Sky One."

Lovespring International will debut on Sky this autumn, with Hidden Palmes following next spring.

Five has bought Shark, a legal drama from Oscar-winning producer Brian Glazer. James Woods stars as attorney Sebastian Stark, who joins LA district attorney's high profile crime unit. As if to emphasise the movie world's new respect for TV, the pilot was directed by Spike Lee.

Another top movie director Barry Levinson, an Oscar-winner for Rain Man, is one of the producers behind medical drama 3lbs, another BBC purchase.

This story of Los Angeles brain surgeons features Stanley Tucci as an unpredictable neurosurgeon. Whether British TV buyers need their heads examined for purchasing this and the other series will be seen in due course.