1) THE PAST: INFINITY FEUD
Family Feud is one of most long-living show in Tv history. Launched in 1976 on ABC, after 45 years it still ranks 5°in the top traveling formats with 68 total sales, according to K7 reports “Tracking the Giants”. Apart from the Tv show, there are also several online versions, a number of video games and at least 20 different boardgames, including retro editions.
Distributed internationally by Fremantle, the format pits families against each other as they compete to guess the most popular answers to survey questions in the hope of winning cash prizes.
Also Netflix has decided to focus on this great classic: in these days Hastings’ OTT has boarded the second season of the South African version of this historical gameshow and will make the format available across 44 new countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.
An extraordinary success which travels across years and platforms.
2) AND THE FUTURE: HYBRID SHOWS
One of the most recent trends of unscripted is the “hybrid show”, i.e. programs with “real” and virtual persons (avatars, virtual idols…). The first format that exploited all the huge technological possibilities (AR, motion capture, real-time rendering etc.) was Dimension Nova, which premiered at the beginning of 2020 on the Chinese streaming platform iQUYI (see https://coffeemug.media/2021/01/18/dimension-nova/). Also Avastars, produced by Talpa, of which we talked on Friday’s Espresso of the 15th October, uses this kind of techniques in a very innovative way.
In these days Alter Ego, which debuted on US broadcaster Fox earlier this year, will be localized in Russia, Ukraine and Greece in early 2022. The show is a singing competition, but the contestants don’t perform as “real” persons: first they have to create their own avatars, through which they will perform songs to impress the judges.
The effect is really impactful, but in all these formats there is a small “trick”: the judges don’t see the avatars in front of them in the studio, as it might seem, but through a monitor (that isn’t shown), so what the viewers see from home is not what the judges see. It doesn’t matter: the effect is guaranteed!
In the next week’s issue, we’ll see another “hybrid show” of a completely different genre.
3) A NEW SOCIAL EXPERIMENT ABOUT JOBS
Red Arrow Studios International has acquired global distribution rights to social experiment format My New Mystery Job. Created by Stepping Stone Productions and currently in pre-production, the series has been commissioned in the Netherlands under the local title of Blind Getekend, where it will air in the second half of 2022.
The format follows a group of participants who are bored or burnt-out at work and sign up for a career change with a difference; they have to quit their jobs and commit to spending six months trying a new role – without even knowing what it is.
Their skills, aptitude and work/life aspirations are assessed by leading career experts who help find them surprising new jobs. When a good-fit role is identified, each participant is given a contract. However, only basic details such as salary and location are visible. The new jobs will be really unexpected: taking care of animals in a zoo, being a shepherd, organizing funerals….
Over the following months, the candidates are visited to see how they are enjoying their new jobs – and their new lives – and we’ll learn about the thoughts of their family and friends. Then, after six months it’s decision time: the participants must decide whether to stay in their new roles or try to return to their old professions.