MIPTV: The Week in Formats

The weekend before the official MIPTV kickoff again saw the Palais play host to MIPFormats, and there was a flurry of activity in the format space across the whole of the week in Cannes.

Among the notable hotspots, talent featured prominently as a genre. Singer-songwriter Gary Barlow was on hand to help launch the new BBC Worldwide talent competition Let It Shine, and Global Agency held a special world premiere screening of its new music-based competition format Bring Your Fame Back. Armoza Formats debuted the new prime-time singing competition The Final Four at the market and quickly notched up a range of deals, including one in France.

Game shows proved to be another in-demand genre. Inter Medya held a special launch for the interactive quiz show Join Instant at MIPFormats, during which the audience took part in the second-screen gameplay and one lucky winner took home a brand-new MacBook Pro. Endemol Shine’s The Wall was commissioned by RTL in Germany, while Talpa’s 5 Gold Rings landed new adaptations in France and Israel, in addition to a second season being ordered in the Netherlands. Keshet International licensed BOOM! into the Philippines, where it will appear as a stripped segment in the hit variety series Eat Bulaga!

Dori Media Group sold its shiny-floor game-show format Best of All to TV Azteca in Mexico. The two also entered a deal for the reality show Power Couple, marking the format’s tenth international sale. TV Azteca additionally licensed Dori Media Group’s crime drama Dumb for local adaptation, which will be the first one for the format. Also in the scripted arena, Nippon TV inked a new deal with Turkey’s MF Yapim and MEDYAPIM for a local version of the Japanese drama Woman—My Life for My Children. This new agreement follows on from their successful collaboration on the adaptation of Mother.

Collaboration was top of mind for many in the format business at the market, where a handful of creative alliances were announced. Among them, Red Arrow Entertainment Group struck up a partnership with Studio Glam US to jointly create and launch international formats. ITV Studios and CJ E&M entered into a co-development deal to create a new entertainment format for the global market. Bunim/Murray Productions signed an agreement with South Korea-based Signal Entertainment Group that will see the two companies develop new formats.

Meanwhile, A+E Networks tied up with Newen Studios to bring a range of formats to French audiences. Among the titles covered in that deal is Alone, a self-shot format that features survival experts being dropped into wilderness locations. This type of so-called “real reality” is also at the heart of several other formats that piqued buyers’ interests at the market. For example, Ambulance, an Endemol Shine Group format that delves into the world of first responders, was commissioned in Israel for Reshet and greenlit by CBS in the U.S. FremantleMedia scored five new commissions for the factual reality format The Lie Detective, which looks on as a human lie detector tests the honesty of couples.

While the myriad of sales secured at MIPFormats and MIPTV bolstered the notion that there are still plenty of buyers willing to commission new, untested format concepts, there was still plenty of activity for the tried-and-tested sort. BBC Worldwide secured a pan-regional deal with Central Media Enterprise Group for the long-running Dancing with the Stars format across five territories in Central Europe. The company also landed a new local treatment for the perennially popular series The Great Bake Off, which is now headed to the Czech Republic. Mongol TV picked up a pair of format hits in two separate deals, bringing ITV Studios’ Come Dine with Me and Talpa’s The Voice to Mongolia.

With producers and distributors continuing to innovate on evergreen genres like talent and game shows, and new creative alliances being struck to come up with new concepts that can travel across borders, the format genre is one to watch in the year ahead. TV Formats Weekly will be keeping an eye out for all the latest trends. Catch up on these stories, and more, on TVFormats.ws.