Power Couple Proves Compatible

Nadav Palti, the president and CEO of Dori Media Group, talks to TV Formats about the reality format Power Couple, which puts love to the test in a unique way.

Created by Abot Hameiri, the reality format Power Couple puts love to the test in a unique way, with couples’ emotions, humor, tensions and love all coming into play. The Dori Media Group series sees couples move into a villa and face extreme challenges that will test how well they really know each other. In this game, couples who are confident in themselves and believe in their relationship can turn that into money, as the winning couple’s relationship determines the size of the prize.

“Power Couple is a different experience in the reality-show genre, bringing a lot of humor, emotions and love to the screen and not only intrigues and conspiracies,” says Palti.

The show’s origin, though, came from romantic strife, Palti explains. “One of the developers of Power Couple went through a crisis in his married life. His feeling was that even after a few years of marriage, you do not really know your spouse, even when the relationship between the spouses is very good. The format actually comes to strengthen the marital bond and cause a deeper understanding between the spouses, also in that they see what they look like in the eyes of other couples.” He adds that although it’s a reality format, with challenges and eliminations, the couples’ relationships are what is important, what is revealed and what is at its heart. “Viewers at home can find themselves identifying with the couples on the screen.”

The rules and rationale at the heart of Power Couple are made up of something nearly all viewers can relate to and experience together with the participants: relationships. “This is a crackdown that many other programs have tried unsuccessfully to do, how to insert long-term relationships into a reality show,” says Palti.

Couples participate in the program to check in about and empower their relationship; not only to test how much they really know about each other, but also how much money they are willing to bet on it. “It is a format about relationships, and its mantle has one purpose: to allow each couple to examine his or her relationship,” Palti explains.

All of the couples live together, some for the first time, in one house. With this, they can see what their relationship looks like in the eyes of others and also learn about different couples’ relationships. They engage in tasks that they cannot prepare for, ones that don’t measure physical ability or knowledge. The relationship is the basis of all the tasks. In order to win, they need to function together, work as a team and know each other.

Throughout the season, the couples learn more about the partner they have chosen to spend their life with. For some, this process can strengthen their existing bonds; for others, it could push them to a breaking point.

“Dori Media and Abot Hameiri have collaborated on many formats for many years,” Palti says. “Abot Hameiri introduced the format to us, and we saw the potential of the unique format and believed in it.” (Dori Media is the distributor and one of the owners of Power Couple.)

The format has proven successful, having sold to over a dozen territories and showing a successful track record and strong ratings in all territories with new seasons and recommissions. A third season is coming soon in Israel, while it enters its fifth in both Germany and Brazil. There’s a second season in Mexico, a third in Croatia, and four seasons aired in Hungary. The series has aired in South Africa, Portugal, India, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Slovenia, and has sold to Greece and Australia. News of a new Western European sale is expected soon.

“In principle, all over the world, the same basic format structure is produced as it was in the first Israeli season,” Palti explains. “The only changes were made according to the needs of the broadcasting channels regarding the number of episodes or the duration of each episode. The Power Coupleformat is very convenient to produce as it is like an accordion: the basic cycle can be adjusted without breaking its original structure.”

Palti emphasizes that quality content such as Power Couple is always in demand, before, during and after these pandemic times. “During the pandemic, the format was on air in a few territories, with new seasons ordered and new territories signed. The success of the format continues to triumph.”

Territories producing Power Couple have discovered ways that the show can be produced and shot with COVID-19 protocols in mind. The season takes place in two main locations, and both function as closed capsules. In the villa, there are only the couples and the production/technical teams, and the same group of people moves to the studio for the challenges, another closed location where only the participating couples and the team are in it. “Territories that produced their new seasons of Power Couple this year during COVID-19 obviously took all the precautions and kept to the regulations needed to have everyone safe and healthy,” Palti explains. “We are happy to say that no one on Power Couple’s locations has gotten sick [touch wood].”

The format continues to perform well worldwide, he adds, “becoming one of the strongest reality formats. The format originally aired in Israel in 2014, and has since conquered new territories constantly and receives more seasons in territories where it’s aired. What’s next? The sky’s the limit!”