Many people spend all their weekends at flea markets looking for that special treasure. Denise Keniston found hers.

Keniston, a Bangor native and former broadcast journalist, is the creator of “Treasure Hunt,” a game show that soon could be showing up on TV sets around the globe.

In “Treasure Hunt,” two teams are given $150 each and an hour time limit to find items at a flea market priced below their actual value. This includes one special prize that has been placed there by Keniston, the show’s producer and host. An appraiser evaluates the teams’ finds and declares a winner. The winners will go on to play through quarterfinals, semifinals and finals, with the final winner receiving an 11-day antiquing trip to Europe.

“Treasure Hunt” will be holding an open casting call from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at the Schoolhouse Antique Mall, 530 South Main St. in Brewer.

The show is one of three properties of Keniston’s Maine Communications Network, based in Portland. There’s also “The New England Antiques Appraisal Fair,” similar in concept to PBS’s “Antiques Roadshow,” in which people bring in objects to be appraised. She has also begun to publish the magazine “Vintage Life – A Journal of Retro Culture,” the first issue of which was just released.

But it’s “Treasure Hunt” that’s hot right now. It airs at on WVII and WFVX in Bangor and WPXT in Portland, where it first hit the airwaves. It’s also in 12 other markets across the United States.

In addition, Keniston has signed a syndication deal with Television Syndication Company of Florida in March. That firm is now working to sell “Treasure Hunt” in foreign markets.

The way it works is that a production company in, say, Indonesia will receive a packet with all the materials it would need to set up its own version of “Treasure Hunt.” In return for having developed the concept, Keniston would receive a licensing fee.

“I’ll be holding them by the hand as we go through the process,” said Keniston. “We can replicate the format for France, Spain, anywhere.”

To go from a medium-sized market such as Portland to an international stage is a rare thing in the world of TV syndication.

“The odds of this happening are not that great,” said Cassie Yde, president of Television Syndication Company. “But what Denise achieved on her own made the property more attractive. She put the pieces together in the right way.”

What makes “Treasure Hunt” work?

“It’s a crazy combination of luck and skill,” Keniston said. “We’re all looking for a deal. The overall vibe of the show is very lighthearted.”

Becoming a communications entrepreneur has brought Keniston into the public spotlight for the third time.

She was a standout high school basketball player in the mid-1970s, first at Dexter Regional High School, then at Bangor High School, where she helped the Lady Rams win the Eastern Maine Class A basketball championship before her graduation in 1979.

After graduating from the University of Southern Maine, she began her broadcast career at WABI in Bangor, where she worked from 1989 to 1991.

A story she did from Kennebunkport during the term of the first President Bush, which got carried nationally, caught an agent’s attention, and she next moved to KREM in Seattle. She was the station’s consumer-affairs reporter. The popularity of her reports led the station’s advertising department to recruit her to do half-hour quarterly specials.

“Those were really successful, and I learned a lot about programming,” Keniston recalled.

She moved back to Maine in 1999, becoming co-anchor at WMTW in Portland. She stayed there until she decided to get out of TV news in 2000.

Keniston left that world behind because her personality and TV news weren’t a good fit.

“There’s an institutional gender bias,” she said. “If you are not a good girl, if you speak up, if you have your own thoughts, if you’re a little ornery, you will be punished. That was my experience.

“That’s not to say I didn’t have a long and productive career in TV news,” she continued. “But making sure I wore the right earrings, that I looked adoringly at my male co-anchors, it got very old very fast.”

Keniston remembered how much she enjoyed working in a longer format, and decided to form her own communications company, despite the fact that she was a single mother with a young daughter.

“I didn’t think of it as a risk,” she recalled. “I thought of it as a new lease of life. That doesn’t mean there weren’t some difficult moments financially, particularly in the beginning.”

Keniston developed “Antiques Appraisal Fair,” went out and lined up advertisers, and got it on the air on WPXT.

“It was very liberating, because I didn’t have to answer to anyone,” she said.

Good ratings led WPXT officials to approach Keniston about developing a second show, which became “Treasure Hunt.” The hour block was first aired on Sunday mornings, then was moved to primetime on Saturday nights.

The shows consistently draw ratings numbers equivalent to that of studio-produced national syndicated programs, Keniston said.

This past January, Keniston took “Treasure Hunt” to the National Association of Programming Executives Conference in New Orleans. She entered a “pitch-me” contest, standing up on stage in front of hundreds of TV executives and trying to sell her show. She ended up third in the contest, but earned the deal with Television Syndication Company.

While international versions of “Treasure Hunt” remain in embryonic stages, she’s moved on to launch “Vintage Life.” In the 16-page first issue are articles on vintage party dresses, cocktails, icebox cakes and fondue. Keniston plans to double the size of the second issue, which focuses on vintage holidays. The magazine is free for the first couple of issues, and is available at Shaw’s supermarkets.

Keniston has learned a lot about herself through this latest transition in her life.

“I really love building a business,” she said. “I like the freedom of having my own ideas, and having people buying into them with me. I’m independent, driven, flexible and not afraid to take a risk. I’m an entrepreneur, and I never knew that about myself.”

Airtimes for “Treasure Hunt” are WVII, 11:30 p.m. Saturdays; WVFX, 11 a.m. Sundays; WPXT, 9 p.m. Saturdays. Airtimes for “New England Antiques Appraisal Fair” are WVII, noon Sundays; WVFX, 11:30 a.m. Sundays; WPXT, 9:30 p.m. Saturdays.