Sparks Reveals New Formats for MIPTV

STOCKHOLM, March 24:
Sparks Network has announced 12 new formats that will debut for international
buyers at this year’s MIPTV, including Check or Bet from Imagic.

From the company’s
game-show library, Check or Bet
pits six players against each other as they gamble a stack of money on their
knowledge of geography, literature, history, the arts, sciences and more. Other
game shows include Mind Over Matter,
a weekly science quiz show hosted by two comedians who confront three celebrity
guests with funny and provocative questions, and The Persuaders from
Triangle Productions, featuring four knowledgeable and highly opinionated
contestants as they debate a current-events topic with each other.

In the talent-show genre
is Uta Suta from NTV. The
series features contestants given 30 seconds to sing in front of a jury of five
professional songwriters. Viewers are selected for the show through online
karaoke auditions.

Also on offer is Black
Box, a new show from MTV Italia
that experiments with novel ways of storytelling in new media. In addition to
the program itself, viewers can explore the story in depth and gain access to
unrevealed information via mobile phones and the Internet. Scattered throughout
the stories of real-life youngsters are different “twilight zones,” gaps in the
plot where full details are not revealed on TV. When the TV portion of the program
ends, viewers continue to follow the story on the web and via mobile phones.

Other new formats being
offered are The Wedding I Did (Not) Want, Better Believe It!, Daycare
Dilemma, God Bless the Lady, Criss Cross Live, The Green Challenge and Playa del Sol.

“This year’s spring
listing is probably the strongest lineup that we have ever had in the company’s
history,” said Nicola Söderlund, the president of Sparks Network. “We are
moving up to 20 members by the end of this month, and the joint creative output
of proven formats is massive.”

—By Ned Berke