1. ABC BETWEEN OLD CLASSIC AND NEW FORMATS
ABC’s summer lineup of unscripted has been revealed. Apart from the return of a some old formats (the classic game shows Press Your Luck, Celebrity Family Feud and The $100,000 Pyramid and others), there is a bunch of new programs to be launched between May and July. Here they are:
The Great American Tag Sale with Martha Stewart: the famous lifestyle guru and business woman offers advice about planning a successful tag sale and hosts a series of sale events of her own.
Generation Gap (see pic below), from producers Jimmy Kimmel and Mark Burnett: a comedy quiz that pits teams of grandparents and grandkids against each other to answer questions about pop culture from each other’s generations.
The American Rescue Dog Show: a two-hour special where rescued dogs will compete in seven categories including Best In Underbite, Best In Snoring, Best In Belly Rubs…
Claim to Fame: 12 celebrity relatives wishing to step outside of their famous family member’s shadow, live together under one roof, concealing their lineage while competing in challenges.
The Final Straw: 4 teams face off, trying to pull various items, ranging from basketballs to kitchen appliances, from giant stacks without tipping the whole pile over. This seems quite fun, but also very similar to Stacking It! a format created by Nippon Tv and ITV Studios (which was presented at the MipTV Formats Accelerator sessions on April 9th 2021). Ok, in Stacking It! you have to create a stack, whereas in this one you have to pull objects from stacks, but the final result is the same.
2. NEW DUTCH FORMATS (1): DRAGS ARE BACK
The Netherlands have always been a fertile territory for formats and this is confirmed by 2 new shows launched or announced in these days.
The first one is Make Up Your Mind, produced by Herriemakers and globally distributed by Fremantle, that premiered last Saturday (9th April) on RTL4. This series follows a special episode aired on May 15th, 2021. The concepts is easily described: Drag Race meets The Masked Singer. The format follows a group of celebrities as they are made-up, dressed and trained to become drag queens. A panel of professional drag queens judges their dance and lip-syncing skills in weekly performances, while another panel of celebrities attempts to guess their real identities. Not particularly original, to tell the truth, but for sure colorful, fun and effective.
3. NEW DUTCH FORMATS (2): SONGWRITERS CONTEST
The second one is I Want Your Song, a common project between UK Rochford Productions and John de Mol’s Talpa, which will premiere this summer on SBS6. Five unknown songwriters get their chance to pitch an original song written by themselves to some of the biggest artists in the country. Each episode features one prominent Dutch recording artist who is looking for their next big hit. The audience is filled with 100 of the artist’s biggest fans: if the artist is ever in doubt over a song, they can ask the fans for advice. The winning song chosen at the end of the episode is immediately available for download and streaming accompanied with a music video, as it gets an instant world premiere by the artist themselves.