THE ERA OF HYBRID CONTENT: all shades of 'tele-digitalisation'
Britain's got talent for digital - Hunting Spanish content creators - Being anonymous online in US
‘Tele-digitalisation’ - i.e. the process of the gradual shift from linear channels to the digital dimensions - is one of the most important phenomena of this transitional period and, together with the emergence of AI and new technologies, is destined to change the global media landscape. One of the consequences of this process is the emergence of 'hybrid' content, and 'hybridisation' will increasingly be the keyword for the new way of doing television.
BRITAIN’S GOT TALENT FOR DIGITAL
ITVX offers many excellent examples of content hybridisation. Since its launch in December 2022, ITV's OTT streaming service has reached 3 billion streams: in the first quarter of 2024, it generated 896m streams, an increase of 12% compared to the first quarter of the previous year. This has been achieved thanks to a multi-faceted strategy that includes the 'classic' cartch-up service of linear network programmes, a range of original content (e.g. Nolly, Love and Death...), but also a number of interesting 'cross-over - hybrid content'.
One of these was a special edition of ITV's most iconic quiz show, The Chase, on the YouTube channel of The Sidemen (Europe's largest collective of YouTube creators), with clips and behind-the-scenes footage also being shared on The Chase's official social media channels (see FE 22nd Feb).
Now, to coincide with the launch of the 17th series of Britain’s Got Talent on ITV1 on 20 April, ITVX will broadcast BGT Reacts, produced by Thames, a Fremantle label which is also behind Britain's Got Talent. In this spin-off, viewers will see highlights from the brand-new series through the eyes of some of the UK's biggest content creators, who will share their thoughts and opinions on the brave acts taking to the stage in a bid to impress the judges.
The content creators will be joined by some notable acts from previous series of Britain's Got Talent, as well as a few surprise celebrities. BGT Reacts will be a celebration of the 'react' style of video that has recently dominated social media around the world and will feature reactions to the auditions from this new series.
HUNTING CONTENT CREATORS
Flooxer (the Spanish brand of the original audiovisual streaming platform owned by Atresmedia) has begun filming Temporada de Caza ('Hunting Season'), the local version of the successful Dutch format from Talpa Studios.
It is a classic manhunt, along the lines of Banijay's Hunted, but with the twist that the protagonists are some of the most influential content creators on the current digital scene, in different fields, who will take on the role of hunters and fugitives to star in a real-time escape.
Each episode will feature three hunters (personal trainer Cesc Escolà, comic actress and writer Gakian and comedian Álvaro Casares: pic), who will also be the hosts of the show, and a different fugitive in each episode. The fugitive, who will have to stay on the run for the entire time to win the adventure, will have a twenty-minute head start at the start of the escape and will be able to pre-arrange up to two assists from friends or acquaintances. They will not have a mobile phone or money and will be dressed in orange overalls.
For their part, the hunters will also have certain advantages when it comes to catching the fugitive. They will be able to track him by land, sea and air, and will have a van to facilitate their movements, as well as all the resources and clues they will find in their search. They will also receive the fugitive's coordinates every 10 minutes, but their location will be revealed with the distance in kilometres once an hour.
In this case, the level of hybridisation is quite low, as it is a classic format that uses content creators only as participants.
BEING ANONYMOUS ONLINE
The Anonymous (working title), a brand new competition reality series from multi-award-winning prodco Studio Lambert (the All3Media-backed production company behind series such as Peacock’s The Traitors and Netflix’s Squid Game: The Challenge, pic), recently commissioned by NBCUniversal-owned cable network USA Network, is also based on a form of real/digital hybridisation.
Filming is set to take place in Europe, this ‘social strategy format’ asks the central question “What would you say if nobody was watching you?”, according to a logline. The game itself takes place in two “modes”: the physical world, in which participants will interact face-to-face with one another; and the digital world, in which the players will be able to act anonymously.
Within their digital 'hiding places', players can say or do whatever they feel will help them progress in the game, but they must be careful not to be 'unmasked' by other players. The player who is best at remaining anonymous will have the power to eliminate his competitors.
It's an original and interesting concept, but finding the right mix between the real and online plan has never been easy in an unscripted format, and many shows have failed in the past (for example, Too Shy to Date: Love Is in VR - 2019). But that was a different era, and perhaps the time is now ripe for this kind of hybridisation. We shall see.
NEWS IN A NUTSHELL
On Wednesday 17 April, Factor X, produced by Mediaset España in association with Fremantle España, premiered on Spanish channel Telecinco. It was previously broadcast on Cuatro for the first two editions in 2007 and 2008, and on Telecinco for the third edition in 2018
The first four episodes of The Circle Season 6 on Netflix were released on 17 April last year, with four new episodes every Wednesday: for the first time ever, an AI bot enters the game as the ultimate catfish
Prime Video has ordered a celebrity-focused spin-off of the classic American quiz show Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?, which originally aired on Fox in 2007.
HGTV, the US pay-TV channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, has announced a new series, Who's Afraid of a Cheap Old House? -inspired by the popular Cheap Old House Instagram account- premiering May 14. Led by historic preservationist Elizabeth Finkelstein and her husband Ethan Finkelstein, an expert in budget-conscious historic construction, the series will appeal to bargain hunters who dream of owning a classic home at an affordable price
Mediapro Studio has reached an agreement with TelevisaUnivision to produce an adaptation of the game show Crush, which will be filmed in Mexico and broadcast on Sunday prime time on Televisa's Las Estrellas channel, with the quiz show also being broadcast in the US on Univision
Canela TV has confirmed the third season of Secretos de Villanas (Secrets of Villainesses), a reality series that brings together six of the most emblematic villains of soap operas
RCN Televisión, Colombia's free-to-air television network, has begun filming the sixth series of MasterChef Celebrity, the new Colombian version of the format
LGBTQ+ streaming service OUTtv has picked up global SVoD rights to BBC competition series Glow Up: Britain’s Next Make Up Star and boarded its sixth season as a coproducer