THE HYPER-REALITY PHENOMENON
An AI format and a focus on India
HYPER-REALITY
There has been a very strong trend for some years now, but it has never been noticed — not even by me — because it remains hidden and ‘disguised’ by other, more easily recognisable trends. It is the trend of HYPER-FORMATS, i.e. reality shows that feature (and often also host) participants from other reality shows, and, more recently, influencers and internet personalities.
A current example is the German reality show Reality Queens – Auf High Heels durch den Dschungel (Reality Queens: Through the Jungle in High Heels), whose second season will be broadcast digitally only on RTL+ starting 9 February, and which was produced by Warner Bros. International Television Production Deutschland GmbH for RTL+.
As the title suggests, the participants are 12 former reality TV contestants, including the host Filip Pavlović, who won I’m a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! in 2022. The first season aired weekly on RTL+ from 6 June to 1 August 2024 and was set in the greenest country in the world: Suriname, a small country in South America where 93 per cent of the land is covered by rainforest.
Here, queens of reality TV compete against each other while living in the open air in the middle of the rainforest. Together, they compete for the jackpot, but ultimately, only one of the 12 queens will have the chance to win up to 50,000 euros in prize money. They compete not only for the money, but also for their sleeping quarters: the winners fill the team coffers and sleep in the luxury camp, while the losers are sent to the basic camp.
In the second series, everything seems to have been confirmed except for the location, which has moved to the Colombian jungle. As you can see, there are no significant new elements or twists in the format, which relies exclusively on the queens’ casting. However, the audience seems to like it, so a second series is well justified.
BEING ‘AI-RGENTINE’
As we all know, artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly widespread in the media industry, redefining the way audiovisual content is created, produced and shared. From scriptwriting to distribution, from legal aspects to the generation of increasingly realistic videos, AI is transforming every stage of the production process, opening up new possibilities for authors, producers, broadcasters and all companies operating in the world of media and entertainment in general.
However, there are not yet many formats that incorporate AI into their concept, since unscripted programming is based on the ‘reality’ of the depicted situations (unlike scripted content, where everything is fictional). Nevertheless, this type of content is set to grow, as evidenced by the recent Danish format AI Love You (see FE, 7 March 2025).
Now, Argentine Telefe Studios presents Me, Myself & AI, a feel-good show where AI is present from its title. In the show, guests come face to face with hyper-realistic representations of themselves at different stages of their lives, created using AI and machine learning technologies. Through these encounters, guests explore the moments, decisions, and emotions that have shaped their personal and professional journeys.
Each episode offers an intimate and immersive journey in which a celebrity converses with different versions of themselves from throughout their life. The celebrity travels through their own history within an immersive virtual set, where important places in their life are recreated and real people, objects, and other elements of high emotional significance are incorporated.
An interesting concept where AI has an ‘emotional’ function, and not just a technological one, to create the ‘wow effect’. It should be noted, however, that the format is in fact an ‘extension’ of the German special with almost the same title, Me & Myself, on air on Sky One Deutschland in September 2023 (pictured), where 88-year-old actor Dieter Hallervorden is given the opportunity to ‘self-interview’ his younger self. It’s time to find something new...
TWICE INDIA
India is usually off the radar when it comes to formats. Nevertheless, there are a couple of recent pieces of information regarding it, so it is only fair to share them.
Firstly, there is a local version of the French reality game Les Cinquante (The Fifty), which has been airing on M6 in France since 2022 (see FE, 9 September 2022) and has recently completed its fourth season. Originally created by the French production company B.Productions, there has already been a Polish adaptation launched on Amazon Prime Video, while the format also debuted on Prime Video in Germany. In India, the show will be produced by Banijay Asia and is due to launch on 1 February.
Set within a grand house, in an atmosphere somewhat reminiscent of Squid Game, the format sees 50 reality TV stars (another hyper-reality!) face the challenges of a mysterious Game Master, hidden behind a lion mask. As alliances are formed and friendships are tested, the contestants compete to increase a shared jackpot, with eliminations being decided by the players themselves. In a final twist, rather than being awarded to the winner, the life-changing cash prize is given to one of their registered followers, chosen via the show’s app.
The second is the debut, on Tuesday, 27 January, of the first episode of the first ever Indian version of Wheel of Fortune. The series is produced by Frames Production Company, broadcast on Indian TV channel Sony Entertainment Television and streamed on Sony LIV, and sponsored by a bunch of companies, among them Maruti Suzuki and Maaza, Philips Home Appliances and State Bank of India.
There isn’t much more to say about one of the world’s most iconic television formats, which has been broadcast in over 60 countries since its original U.S. debut in 1975 and remains a hit in many of them. Welcome to the club, India!
NEWS IN A NUSHELL
UK broadcaster ITV has ordered a new adaptation of the hit dating format Farmer Wants a Wife, with Fremantle-owned label Naked set to produce.
This latest version, titled Farming for Love, comes almost 25 years after the format first premiered on British screens. Based on an original idea from the UK’s Country Living magazine, the format first premiered in 2001 on ITV where it aired for a single season. Channel 5 also commissioned a Louise Redknapp-hosted version which ran for a single season in 2008.
Leading independent distributor All3Media International has secured the first international adaptation of The Inheritance, with Brazilian Media Group, Globo, commissioning a local version of Studio Lambert’s psychological reality format.
The Brazilian version will be available exclusively on Globo’s video-on-demand platform, Globoplay and produced by Formata.
Telecinco, Mediaset España’s main channel, has given the green light to a local version of the British format The Honesty Box, a reality dating show distributed by BBC Studios. The Spanish version, still untitled, will be produced by Brutal Media, part of BBC Studios. Casting is now open.
Sony Pictures Television (SPT) has entered into an option agreement with Thailand’s TV Thunder and Columbia Pictures’ themed water park Aquaverse to develop its unscripted format 100 Choices in the country. In this comedy family format, a group of contestants is faced with one question but 100 possible answers. If they can answer correctly, they’ll win a large cash priz
On 29 January, Spanish public channel La 1 premiered Crossover, a sketch show co-produced by RTVE and El Terrat. The programme parodies the most popular series, programmes and films around at the moment.
Food Network star host/chef Guy Fieri, a.k.a. the Mayor of Flavortown, is spearheading a series about “the tastiest place on earth”, Flavortown Food Fight, which premieres on the cable network on March 4 with episodes streaming next-day on HBO Max and Discovery+.
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