Hungry for Love

 

Finding love is hard enough—imagine doing so under the glare of the spotlight. The end result is a mix of pure-hearted emotion and mild embarrassment played out entertainingly on the TV screen. This has been the driving force behind many dating and marriage formats, which have been gaining popularity worldwide by putting an innovative spin on an age-old concept.

 

Some dating formats, such as FremantleMedia’s The Farmer Wants a Wife, have a feel-good story at their core, with contestants who are truly looking to find a soul mate. Rob Clark, the president of worldwide entertainment at FremantleMedia, says the format is one of his favorites in the company’s catalogue because it tells a story rooted in the “real reality” of someone genuinely searching for a partner. “A lot of dating shows are not about a love story,” he says. “They’re about fun and entertainment, and that’s fine if that’s what they want to be. The Farmer Wants a Wife doesn’t set out to be that. It sets out to be a quite emotional, romantic, interesting, warm, friendly experience, and at the end we do normally find a partner for the farmer. The whole nation sits there and sobs their eyes out. It’s a great show!”

 

FremantleMedia has sold the format in 19 territories, and Clark expects this number to continue to grow. “In some places now we’re on season five or season six. There are no signs that it’s letting up either, it’s a fixture.” Indeed, The Farmer Wants a Wife is the number one show in its time period in ten territories, including Australia, Croatia, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.

 

True love is also the foundation for one of Talpa Distribution’s most successful international formats, Dating in the Dark. While the series may revolve around dating and finding a mate, the contestants are thrown a curve ball: absolute darkness. Maarten Meijs, the managing director of Talpa Distribution, explains, “The format is considered to be a fresh take on the dating game. Story lines evolve around people who are seriously looking for real love and a relationship, but who do all their dating in a dark room, preventing them from actually seeing the person they are on a date with.”

 

Since its launch last year, the show has been picked up in more than 20 countries. Among other territories, the series is currently on air in the U.K., the Netherlands, a host of Scandinavian countries and in Latin America. In the U.S., Dating in the Dark was recently commissioned for a second season on ABC. “We are continuing to build the brand’s presence all over the world,” Meijs adds.

 

SevenOne International’s Love Bites also features a twist on traditional dating and still keeps with the trend towards feel-good programming. The show presents four single men, armed with only their cooking talents and charm, as they attempt to seduce one woman with a three-course meal. “Love Bites is the perfect combination of dating and dining,” says Jens Richter, SevenOne’s managing director.

 

“The old stereotype of ‘women cook, men eat’ works great for Love Bites, especially when such a format travels to countries with a more macho attitude towards cooking. It’s just hilarious to watch the Greek version, where women usually cook for the family and men now have to impress the girl with their cooking skills.” He adds, “The format also plays very well with [looking at] men/women flirting strategies: whereas girls tend to start catfights when fighting for a man, the men rather try to leave a mark and outdo their competitors.”

 

Rather than competing for affection, sometimes love is quite simply found close to home. This is the premise of ohm:tv’s Date Your Neighbour. The half-hour series plays on the reality of countless singles living alone in high-rise buildings and residential areas in every city: perhaps their next great love is just a doorstep away.

 

On the other end of the dating spectrum, there are a host of formats in which finding love is far from the actual focus. One example is FremantleMedia’s Take Me Out. “The show does not set out, in any way, shape or form, to find romance for somebody,” says Clark. “If you come on Take Me Out, you’re not looking for a husband or a wife. You’re probably looking for a date or just to have a good time. It’s more about entertainment.”

 

Armoza Formats also features a number of titles in its catalogue that have a more playful, entertainment-based approach to dating. Some of the shows, like Buzz Off and Foreplay, even incorporate game-show-style elements.

 

“Buzz Off’s 21st-century twist involves the use of electric buzzer technology,” explains Avi Armoza, the CEO of Armoza Formats. “Each of the 20 bachelors must wear a buzzer on his arm; he’ll be at the mercy of the dater, who can give him an electric jolt if she wants to move on to the next [guy]. It’s basically a 21st-century single’s dream—blind dates condensed to speed dating with the ability to tell the most boring guys to ‘buzz off’ in a hilarious and effective manner!”

 

Other formats, like Armoza’s Approved for Love, bring families and friends into the selection process. “We’ve had a lot of success with Approved for Love in territories in which family is a cultural keystone,” says Armoza. “The format allows families to take over the dating process of a single person. Cultures in which the families are very involved in the dating process, such as in the Mediterranean and Asian territories, find the show very appealing.”

 

Global Agency has also found this type of format to be quite successful, according to Izzet Pinto, the company’s CEO. “Our best-selling wedding format is The Perfect Bride,” he says. “The show was first broadcast in Turkey in 2004, and broke all previous ratings records by reaching a 71-percent share. It’s our pride.”

 

The series has been sold in 20 territories, including Italy, the Middle East, Korea and India. “The Perfect Bride focuses on the relationship of brides and their future mothers-in-law. There are jokes about mothers-in-law in every country, in all societies. We witness this live on TV.”

 

Another Global Agency format, My Wedding Witness Is My Ex!, features former partners who are brought in to live alongside couples on their path to marriage. Pinto says that this out-of-the-ordinary scenario sets the stage for plenty of drama, which lures in audiences and generates buzz. “All these formats are so edgy that, the minute [broadcasters] air these shows, they would receive incredible publicity. In today’s market, it’s all about creating buzz. The more people talk about your show, the more advertising revenue you receive.”

 

There’s also a crop of wedding formats that cross over into the competition arena, like ITV Studios Global Entertainment’s Four Weddings. The show, originally commissioned by LIVING in the U.K., features four competitive brides and four extremely different nuptials. While one contestant is getting married, the other three guest brides cast judgment and secretly score the special day. The bride with the highest score at the end of each episode wins the ultimate prize, a five-star dream honeymoon.

 

In Armoza’s Extreme Wedding Album, one couple is tasked on their special day to perform a variety of challenges. For each challenge they complete, a part of their wedding will be funded.

 

There’s also a competition premise in Televisa Internacional’s Dancing for the Wedding of My Dreams, where ten couples battle it out to win an unforgettable wedding. “This format was conceived just a couple of years ago,” says José Luis Romero, Televisa’s director of formats and new content. “Since the beginning, we have tried to involve all kind of media resources to enhance the content. To give an example, the web portals of the format give you a lot of information about the couples, fan polls, blogs and many other tools related to the current media. At the end, we try to use all [possible] resources to give the audience a unique entertainment experience.”

 

A rather large hurdle in dealing with dating and marriage formats is taking into consideration cultural and religious differences around the world. These elements add an extra level of difficulty to the adaptation process.

 

“While love may be universal, dating and weddings certainly are not,” says Armoza. “Our show Till Our Parents Do Us Part is based on the premise that there are engaged couples whose parents have not yet met and that the reason for that is that the parents come from completely different worlds—religions, political views, socioeconomic status, etc. In homogenous societies, it would be very difficult to find these couples. In countries that engage in very formal dating processes, in which the parents of an engaged couple would have to meet before an engagement, the format would work, but would have to be adapted.”

 

There are some formats in the genre that even have concepts too salacious to be translated. “Some of our titles can’t enter all the markets,” says Global Agency’s Pinto, pointing to the controversial new series Rent a Mama, in which couples vie for a free surrogacy service, while potential surrotate mothers compete for a cash prize.

 

For Karoline Spodsberg, the managing director of Banijay International, differences in religion and culture haven’t posed much of a problem. “We actually haven’t found that to be an issue. Love, relationships and their problems are very similar no matter what country you come from.”

 

Other distributors, like Televisa, view these challenges as a positive opportunity. “Dealing with traditions and cultural issues gives us the chance to be flexible with our formats,” says Romero. “We keep learning with every twist and change that we [make] in an effort to achieve the best local adaptation for each country. We believe in format evolution, and this evolution comes from experience, not only domestic, but international.”

 

Talpa’s Meijs shares this sentiment. “It is challenging, but that is also the fun part of international distribution. Within Talpa we have a team of professional creatives and producers who are aware of the need to respect and adapt to cultural differences worldwide. Our vision is to create formats suitable for international distribution. For the local production, we strongly believe in using the local knowledge of the relevant culture. We partner together with our clients to see what adjustments are needed to guarantee a good match with their specific TV audience.”

 

Dating and marriage shows are actually quite adept at hitting the target with specific audience segments. In particular, Clark at FremantleMedia has noticed that entertainment-style shows have a pull with the younger demographic. “Very few older people will watch Take Me Out,” he notes. “The young target audience will sit there and watch it in millions. That’s the interesting thing about Take Me Out: from an advertiser’s point of view, it’s almost a pure market. It has an ability, because of its fun nature and the lack of seriousness, to bring home vast numbers of young people.”

 

Additionally, Banijay’s Spodsberg points out, dating and marriage shows are very appealing to the female segment, “which in many territories is more than 60 percent of the viewers,” she says.

 

However, it’s the juggling act between audience targets and scheduling that can make or break the show’s success. FremantleMedia’s Clark notes, “There’s a general belief that dating and marriage is the kiss of death for some channels, and I don’t believe that’s true. I believe that on every channel, if it’s scheduled correctly and targeted correctly, a good dating format can work. It has to be handled with care. You can’t just put it anywhere in your schedule; you need to be quite careful where you put a dating show. If it’s scheduled right, then the target audience will come to that.”

 

Aside from their ability to hone in on a specific audience segment, dating and marriage formats are attractive to broadcasters because they are relatively inexpensive options. “You get a lot of bang for the buck,” says Banijay’s Spodsberg. “Dating shows, especially ones in a studio, are pretty cheap to produce and still create strong emotions in a tense and exciting atmosphere.”

 

Since these shows are often stripped, they are produced in high volume so broadcasters can fill an extended number of slots. “With the daily shows, they reduce the cost of total production budget per episode,” says Global Agency’s Pinto. “It becomes like an unscripted

d telenovela and the viewers can’t miss a single episode.”

Indeed, shows in the dating and marriage genre have gained a reputation for keeping up loyal viewership. Many credit the genuine, emotional stories being told as the reason audiences continue to tune in episode after episode.

 

“Viewers identify with the real-life emotions that the participants of the shows have to deal with,” says Televisa’s Romero. “The audience will always be willing to get involved with other people’s feelings.”

 

Love is unquestionably a universal emotion, making the appeal of these formats global in scope. “Dating shows have been and always will be extremely popular,” Spodsberg says. “Love is something everybody can relate to. No matter if you are single or in a relationship, you know the feelings going through the minds of the contestants on a dating show, and you want them to succeed and find the one true love…or fail if they aren’t your cup of tea.” She adds, “These shows bring strong positive emotions, which in the end will create very watchable and entertaining feel-good content.”