Animal Attraction Leads DRG Format Slate

LONDON: DRG has four new format titles to launch at MIPCOM, led by the entertainment show Animal Attraction, which provides a fresh take on competitive dating.

Mixing social experiment, serious science and behavior from the natural world, Animal Attraction sets out to see if a serial dater can park their interest in someone’s looks and job prospects and instead find their perfect match using biology alone. Created for NRK by NRK Productions, a second season of Animal Attractions has already been commissioned.

DRG is also presenting Living Stone, a competitive adventure reality format. The show sends seven couples into the African wilderness and challenges them to find their way to civilization in ten stages. Living Stone is a STRIX production for Insight (Europe).

TMI is an original idea that brings the hidden-camera prank show up-to-date by using social media to catch out young adults who live their lives online. The half-hour format is created by Strike Films for RTÉ in Ireland.

Rounding out the slate, Going Back, Giving Back is a new hosted format that puts a spin on philanthropy shows. Ordinary people who have battled hardship in their lives take a journey into their past in order to change another person’s future with an act of extraordinary generosity. The original was produced by ITN Productions for BBC One.

DRG’s game-show format Fifteen to One, currently produced in five territories, has just been recommissioned for 100 new episodes in the U.K., making two new 50-episode seasons (seven and eight). Both series will be produced by Remedy Productions for Channel 4, based on an original idea by John M Lewis.

Noel Hedges, the executive VP of content and acquisitions at DRG, commented: “Formats is a very dynamic part of the DRG business and we have developed real expertise in finding great ideas and then working on them with broadcasters to help them have hit shows. The great thing about our four new formats for MIPCOM is that they each have one foot in the familiar, in areas that we know viewers love, but they also each have a completely original and new approach to the topic. This means that broadcasters can look to minimize risk, while also delivering something new and an element of surprise for their audiences.”