Friday's Espresso - 3rd FEB

Week from 27th January to 3rd February

1. COOKING WITH AI

It was just a matter of time. Artificial Intelligence -destined to enter strongly into our lives in the near future- is going to make its appearance in unscripted. In the last MipCom Love by A.I. - a dating show from TBS - has been launched, but, to tell the truth, with mediocre results (in that case the use of AI was completely unnecessary). Now things are changing.

Gusto Tv, the international food channel that can be viewed across 160+ countries on 40+ different platforms, has announced there is in production the first food show featuring on-screen characters generated through Artificial Intelligence software and rendered in post-production.

The Wizard of Sauce, that will air later this year, features a “real” host (Kyle Crawford) who shares the tips, techniques and secrets of the perfect sauce. But there are also 3 secondary characters: Professor Saussenheimer, Dr. Sauss and Sgt. Sauce-alot. Each character appears in a 30-second interstitial over the course of an episode. All three characters were performed by Crawford in costume to script. Crawford’s characters were then digitized in post-production and rendered as new AI characters.

But it’s not all: Gusto TV is now working on its next AI project called Some Assembly Required, a series featuring a host/chef who speaks with “Mother Nature”, an AI creation that appears on set via a giant plasma screen.

In the meantime, exactly while I was writing this post, I read the news that Fremantle has partnered with an AI start-up to automatically translate and dub hundreds of hours of some of their formats (such as Idols, Got Talent and The X Factor) into Arabic. The future of Tv has definitively started.

2. A TECH BRIGATE TO REDUCE THE TECHNOLOGICAL GAP

According to John Reith, the 1st Director-General of the BBC, the purpose of the TV public service could be summarized in 3 words: inform, educate, entertain. Of the 3, nowadays the most neglected is by far “educate”.

With Brigada Tech (Tech Brigate), that will premiere shortly on La1, the first channel of the Spanish state-owned public corporation RTVE, this mission makes a comeback. The aim of the program is to help the viewers (especially the elderly part) to acquire digital knowledge and skills, in order to reduce, in a pleasant way, the digital divide.

Brigada Tech will try to answer questions such as: what is the Metaverse? What is the digital twin for? What are the benefits of 5G? How are banking apps used? What is an avatar? Is there a difference between virtual reality and immersive reality?

Conducted by Lujan Arguelles (see pic), together with Victoria, Charo and Pilar, 3 curious grandmothers who yearn to learn new digital concepts, an itinerant set will be moving through all the autonomous communities of Spain to explain the concept of the day, interview local celebrities, businessmen and users who will tell how technology has helped them improve their lives, or their businesses.

In addition we will have young Digital Mentors (@lalachus3, @sensillocons, @pablogshow and others), influencers with thousands of followers in their networks. They will put their knowledge and skills at the service of everyone and will carry an air of freshness and modernity.

The program, that at the moment does not have a release date yet, is financed with UE funds: another element of interest.

3. A BUNCH OF NEW FORMATS AROUND THE WORLD (PART I)

In this first month of 2023 there has been a reawakening of creativity, with new formats all around the world launched or announced. Here some of them.

KOREA. Two new formats of Wonwoo Park, CEO of DiTurn and creator of the global hit The Masked Singer, have been taken on representation for Media Ranch, the Canadian production company and distributor of unscripted formats.

Love Maze, co-created by Park and Something Special CEO Jin Woo Hwang, is a dating show where a real maze stands in the way of two people falling in love. In the maze, a few twists and turns will challenge the duo possibly leading them away from their potential soulmate, but towards hidden cash. Will participants choose money or go all the way to the end for love?

Round Table is a singing competition where celebrity contestants without any singing skills have to sing to win. They have to sing their part of a song before passing the next part to someone else. Will the next celebrity be hilariously out of tune, or are they secretly talented and will knock your socks off? Judges will evaluate the performance of each celebrity, deciding who stays and who is eliminated. In the final round, the remaining celebrities will share the prize pool.

FINLAND. The Finnish public channel Yle2 launched the comedy series The World According to Comedians. Three internationally comedians, Aditi Mittal (India), Tumi Morake (South Africa) and Liza Treyger (US) travelled to Finland to find out what makes it the happiest country on earth for the 5th year in a row. During the day each comedian works in a different place alongside with locals, while in the evening they are back together to share their findings/pics and rate the day. The final episode is a stand-up comedy special in New York inspired by the trip.

US. Tubi - the ad-supported streaming service owned by Fox Corporation - is set to launch the original unscripted cooking series Kitchen Commando, produced by Gordon Ramsay, who presented his new prodco company, Studio Ramsey Global, in the last MipCom. Over ten episodes, former U.S. Army Master Sergeant and White House chef Andre Rush (see pic) will visit restaurants in the surrounding Washington, D.C. area to save struggling businesses and reignite their passion for the service industry.

UK. Channel 4 has just commissioned Kings of the Jungle (w/t) from Twenty Twenty productions: the explorer and former British Army captain Ed Stafford (see pic) sets up an extreme survival school that will put struggling modern dads and their children through some of the toughest outdoor challenges on the planet. He actually believes that modern British dads are becoming too soft, too comfortable, and too risk-averse; for that reason they need a wilderness adventure school.

More new formats from around the world will follow in the next issue!