1- A TALENT & A GAME SHOW FROM LATIN AMERICA
Since the talent show genre has been established (end of ‘90s-early ‘00s), lots of categories of participants - different from the usual artistic and sports - have been used: Tique Het (marionettes and puppets); Window Warriors (window dressers); Sniper the Ultimate Challenge; The Nation’s Best Sand Sculptor; Good with Wood (carpenters); Forged in Fire (blacksmiths); The Cleaning Masters (cleaning specialists) and even nerds (the very fun The King of the Nerds).
Now a new category is added to this long list: computer developers. C0d3rs Championship (produced by StoryLab together with Ogilvy Argentina and IBM) is a new talent/competition series on air these days on Prime Video of some Latin American countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela, in which 20 of the region’s best developers compete against each other generating disruptive solutions to different problems of daily life.
Interesting experiment, but the question is: will it have enough television appeal?
At the end of July, Canal 5 in Mexico will premiere the guessing game show ¿Cuál es el bueno? (Who is The Good One?), produced by TelevisaUnivision and Endemol Shine Boomdog. The concept is simple: 3 contestants each time go on stage pretending to have a particular talent, job or personal characteristic. 2 are liars and 1 tells the truth. 3 celebs (“the liar hunters”) try to discover who is “the good one” to win a prize.
2- AN INTERACTIVE JOURNEY ON MTV
On 15th July MTV India launched an ad-funded interactive show that follows two influencers driving around 4 cities (Goa, Mumbai, Delhi and Manali) on board a Hyundai car, that is the sponsor of the format giving it its title (Hyundai x MTV What’s Your Venue, from creative agency Havas Media Group).
The only (small) peculiarity is that the viewers, voting on social media a series of options at important intersections, can interact with the couple deciding the direction of travel and other important choices (where to eat, what to visit etc.).
Consistent with the transmedial nature of the show, it is also available concurrently via Voot, the streamer operated by Paramount sibling Viacom18, and it’s also shown live on MTV’s YouTube page.
3- FORMATIZED SEX
The lessons of sex coach Caitlin V. (pic) will become a format titled Good Sex (produced by from Karga Seven Pictures), which will premier 19th August on Discovery+. But how to formatize this issue? Quite easy, because the “technique” of the coach implies “a radical approach”: “I’ve asked my clients to put cameras in their bedrooms” Caitlin says.
So she first observes a love night of her clients - a couple that have sex problems from erectile dysfunction and mismatched libidos to excessive masturbation - then gives the therapy and practical exercises/suggestions to lead them to the happy ending they are hoping for.
Not a particularly original or refined format, to tell the truth, but quite effective.