1. A YOU TUBE FORMAT
VTM (the main commercial television station in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium) broadcast yesterday, Thursday 1st September, the first episode of Hunting Season, a format created by StukTV and Talpa Concepts.
In this adventure game show, a duo of celebrities must escape from a team of three prison guards, who have one goal: to catch the fugitives within four hours. The fugitive gets a 20-minute head start and wears a transmitter that sends a GPS coordinate to the hunters, every 10 minutes. While the hunting team is provided with various tools to track the fugitive from their spy-van, the fugitive has nothing: no phone and no cash. The fugitive wins the game if he manages to stay out of the hunters’ reach for exactly four hours. However, if the hunters catch the fugitive within that time slot, it’s game over.
But, more than the concept itself, the most remarkable thing is that it is an original format of YouTube and has been voted best YouTube series several times in the Netherlands. As far as I know, it was the very first case that a format originally created for the online Google owned platform is adapted for a TV linear channel. The dynamics and the borders of the market are definitively changing.
2. AN ANIMAL TALENT IN THE FARM
Vanity Farm: Revolución en la Granja (Revolution in the Farm), produced by The Mediapro Studio, premiered on the Spanish channel Aragón TV last Monday 29th August. In each episode 8 animals of 4 different categories (bovine, equine, ovine and birds) will compete against each other. The 2 finalists of each category will challenge each other in the last episode in order to win the prize of €10.000.
A nice concept, but similar to ¡Vaya fauna!, a studio-based animal talent show, on air a few years ago, always in Spain, on Telecinco (see pic): in both cases animals are the protagonists, but while in the first one the trials are related to the farm life, in the latter the performances were more spectacular and more similar to the “human” talent shows.
3. TWO BRITISH GAMESHOWS ADAPTED FOR GERMANY
SevenOne Entertainment Group, parent of Germany’s Sat.1 and ProSieben channels, is adapting the gameshow The 1% Club for Germany and it will soon be on air on Sat.1
Originally created by Magnum Media, The 1% Club was aired on the British channel ITV since April 2022. The show is styled as an IQ test because the questions are not based on general knowledge. In each episode the whole nation is put to the test, with contestants answering a series of questions that can only be answered using logic, reasoning skills and common sense. The game begins with questions that 90% of the population would get right and continues until the final question that only 1% of the country can solve. If successful, the contestant will earn a place in The 1% Club - an elite group of people who can say they’re smarter than 99% of the population. The top prize achievable is £100,000.
The German adaptation marks the fifth international version of the format after France, Israel, the Netherlands and Spain.
Another British gameshow will be adapted in Germany by RTL Germany: it is the local version of UK quiz format Limitless Win (see Friday’s Espresso - 14th JAN) with Endemol Shine Germany producing. The format debuted successfully on ITV at the start of this year with the famous duo hosts Ant & Dec, and the German version is the first international adaptation, which has been renewed for a second run.
In this game contestants take part in pairs as they try to climb the ‘endless money ladder’ by answering questions posed to them by Ant and Dec. If they manage to answer a question correctly, they can bank the cash. However, if they decide to continue up the ladder and then answer another question incorrectly, they’ll lose their existing jackpot.