The Week the Women Went Adapted for France, India

LONDON: BBC Worldwide’s production studios in France and India are to adapt The Week the Women Went, an observational series that tracks as women leave their homes for a week and men pick up the remaining duties.

BBC Worldwide Productions France is producing Une semaine sans les femmes, for French pubcaster France Televisions to launch in spring 2011 as a prime-time two-hour special on France2. BBC India’s version, Wife Bina Life, is produced in partnership with Hindi-language entertainment channel Star Plus. It will broadcast from January 29.

The program follows a social experiment, as women volunteer to leave their community for a week to see how men cope with looking after the kids, cooking, cleaning and supporting the town without them. In India, the participants will be joined by Bollywood and Indian television stars making special guest appearances in some episodes, including Arshad Warsi, Archana Puran Singh, Parmeet Sethi and Raveena Tandon.

BBC Worldwide has previously licensed the format in Germany (RTL2), Sweden (SVT), Belgium (VRT), Canada (CBC), Denmark (TV2), Norway (TV2), Finland (YLE) and Holland (SBS).

Matt Paice, the executive VP for international production at BBC Worldwide, commented: “The Week the Women Went has proved extremely popular with audiences around the world. These mark the ninth and tenth deals we’ve made on this format, and we expect to announce more deals in the future.” He added, “This format is extremely versatile: in France it’s airing as a single piece of event TV—and it marks France2’s first foray into reality television. In India it will be a long-running series with eliminations. Either way, these shows are certain to hit the headlines with a subject matter that continues to command attention.”