Friday's Espresso - 19th AUGUST
Welcome back! Here some quick updates about what has happened in the last 3 weeks.
1. RETURNING CLASSICS
Autumn is coming and, as usual, some classic formats are going to return on the screens over the whole word. Here a brief list of 4 of them, which are true cornerstones of respective genres.
Big Brother will return on UK screens in 2023 on ITV 2, produced by Banijay-owned Initial. The “prototype” of all realities -launched in the Netherlands in 1999- aired in UK in 2000 (after the Spanish and Italian versions) on the publcaster Channel 4 (in the pic below, the original logo) till 2010 and then on Channel 5 till 2018. So now ITV 2 is the third terrestrial channel to air the format in the country.
Old People’s Home for Teenagers, a spin-off of Old People’s Home for 4 Year Olds, will premiere on August 30 on the Australian ABC TV and ABC iview. The original English format, maybe one of the most touching social experiment ever, brings together elderly people in a retirement community with a group of 4-year-olds, showing that this intergenerational encounter helps transform the lives of the elderly. Now this version stages teenagers and shows how the experiment can transform the lives of both.
The game-show The Weakest Link will return in Autumn on the American NBC. Based on the ultra-classic British format, this game show premiered on 2000 on BBC2 and in 20021 on BBC1. It owes its great success mainly to the unconventional style of its first host, Ann Robinson (first pic), who due to her strictness was nicknamed “The Ice Queen”. Now Jane Lynch (second pic) has the honour to take her heritage.
And finally, it’s recent news that the Belgian The Mole (De Mol, distributed by Primitives), that innovated reality genre from the inside and since its creation in 1998 has had more than 20 international versions, will be launched on Netflix this fall. As we know, The Mole is a competitive reality show in which a group of players joins forces to complete various challenges while also trying to find out the identity of a saboteur (“the mole”), who has been hired by the producers to prevent the team from succeeding in their missions.
2. TWO SHADES OF CELEB REALITY
In its essential structure, the Celeb Reality is one of the easiest formats: the most important thing is to select a group of celebs who have a mission to accomplish or live together somewhere, and if the chemistry between the contestants works, the job is done. In the next months, 2 new formats will be launched, that, although different in terms of “flavour” and geography, have exactly the same scheme.
In The Journey—15 Days in Nepal (Viaplay Group) six Scandinavian celebrities travel through the depths of the Nepalese jungle to reach the Himalayan mountains, learning about the rich culture of the area and facing various kinds of adventures. In Secretos de Villanas (“Secretes of Villains”, on Canela TV, a Latino-American network based in Ecuador) the same number of female telenovela villains meets first in Mexico City and then travels via private jet to Cabo San Lucas.
3. ITALIAN BACK TO SCHOOL GOES TO GERMANY
Italy has not a strong tradition of exporting formats, so it’s quite remarkable that Back To School, produced by Blu Yasmine for Mediaset Group and on air in January 2022 on Italia 1, is going to be launched on German free-to-air channel Sat.1 on24th August, with the title Zurück in die Schule.
In the original format, some celebs are prepared by 12 smart kids, aged from 7 to 11 years, in order to repeat the primary school exam. The candidates take the exam in front of a panel of real teachers who decide either to promote them or hold them back until the next episode. Due to the good ratings, the second series of the Italian version is currently under production.