1. METAVERSE: HOW TO DEAL WITH IT?
The Metaverse is still a big question mark, at least regarding the audiovisual contents. At the moment production companies and content creators seem to explore two different directions. The first group of projects (the best one is Meta Date, described in Friday’s Espresso of 25th March) takes videos, situations and scenarios of the Metaverse (mixing them with “real life”) in order to produce a “hybrid format” to be broadcast by traditional TV.
On the other hand, it is possible to use Metaverse precisely for bypassing all the traditional TV platforms. In this case, an audiovisual content can be produced in the traditional way and in the traditional genres and then be shown in some dedicated spaces of the Metaverse (e.g. an auditorium) to a virtual public. In this model, the production can be payed by a brand, that can be in the content itself as a “normal” brand funded programming, or in the Metaverse space, as a kind of billboard. But it’s also possible to make the viewers pay, like a live event or a kind of “virtual drive-in”, using the NFT technology as entrance ticket. Examples of this business model are starting to be developed and we can discuss them more in detail when they’ll become available. Maybe a new future of entertainment (and not only) is about to start.
2. DISCOVERY+ SWINGS INTO DATING
The boom of the dating show of these recent years has involved also Discovery, that makes its debut in this genre, combining it with its DNA.
Love in the Jungle, premiering on Discovery+ on 8th May, starts from an intriguing premise: for thousands of years, the 8.7 million species on earth have relied on tried and tested mating and courtship rituals. Mates are chosen through objective physical tests, physiological responses and bold displays. Maybe as humans it's time we learned about it. This seven-part series follows a group of 14 “unlucky-in-love” singles as they forgo traditional dating methods and try their hand at mating like animals in order to find love. The group will live on a private eco-reserve in Colombia, where they will connect, communicate and flirt with potential mates — all without speaking. Instead, the singles will embrace their animal instincts and participate in mating rituals pulled straight from the animal kingdom.
Sticking to its theme, the series will be narrated like a “classic natural history documentary”, with an expert offering “observational insight into the singles” animalistic behaviors as if seen for the first time in the wild, styled with the streaming service. The result it’s really something fun and original.
3. SILENT LIBRARY GOES TO FRANCE
The French-language version of Nippon TV’s unscripted entertainment format Silent Library premiered last Friday 15th April with the title Silent Library-Si tu fais du bruit… C’est fini!- (If you make noise, you lose!), on MYTF1 MAX, TF1’s online platform.
The iconic Japanese program is a true classic of its genre: created by popular comedian Hitoshi Matsumoto in 2001 as segment of the variety show Downtown No Gaki no Tsukai ya Arahende!, it continues to make laugh a generation of viewers in 15 different countries.
The rules are known: six players sit at a public library table, pick one card each, and the one who picks the skull mark card has to endure a bizarre "punishment," such as a tarantula on his face, taste a bad-smelling businessman's shoes, all while staying silent.
In 2021 the same creators launched a kind of clone of themselves, with the gameshow Mute It!, very funny but also very similar to the original.