Austrian Natascha Kampusch is starting to cash in on her fame generated from being held captive for eight years in an underground cell.

Less than two years after staging a dramatic escape while her captor was distracted with a phone call, the young Austrian woman whose ordeal stunned people worldwide is going prime time with her own TV talk show.

"Natascha Kampusch Meets...," is a chat show featuring local celebrities and debuts on Sunday.

A trailer for the show shows Ms Kampusch typing on a laptop computer, pouring herself a glass of mineral water and grinning as make-up artists give her a final touch-up on the set.

Ms Kampusch, 20, is the first to acknowledge she's an unlikely talk show host.

Some Vienna residents had a mixed reaction to the show.

"She's always complaining about being in the media all the time, but she is the one who pushes herself into it," one man said.

Another woman said Ms Kampusch probably wants to "become famous or make money, I really don't know, but let her try, maybe there are people who are interested in that."

Ms Kampusch was a freckle-faced ten-year-old when she vanished while walking to school in Vienna in March 1998. Her abduction was Austria's greatest unsolved criminal mystery until August 2006, when she stumbled to freedom looking pale, feeble and nearly blinded by the light of day.

During her captivity, Ms Kampusch was allowed to watch TV and videos, listen to the radio and read books in her cell, which included a bed, toilet and a sink.

Within hours of her escape, kidnapper Wolfgang Priklopil - who had confined her to a cramped, dingy, windowless cell beneath his suburban home - committed suicide by leaping in front of a rush-hour commuter train.

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