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MIPCOM: The Week in Formats

While buyers’ predilection for high-quality drama remains pervasive, there was still plenty of action in the unscripted format arena at MIPCOM. Game shows, for one, seemed to stir up a fair bit of buzz at the market. Just ahead of the event’s official kick-off, FremantleMedia announced it was bringing back the classic shopping game show Supermarket Sweep, while Endemol Shine Group revealed that it secured the rights to take FOX’s interactive music game show Beat Shazam global.

Inter Medya, which has established itself as a strong player in selling Turkish dramas, was at MIPCOM with a diversified slate that included the quiz show Money Monster. Global Agency, another power player in the Turkish drama space, made headlines at the market by giving away a cash prize of €10,000 to the winner of the game In and Out, one of the company’s key MIPCOM launches.

Armoza Formats sold its game-show format Upgrade to Italy’s Mediaset, along with the factual-entertainment show The Package. The company saw continued momentum for The Final Four, which it launched at MIPTV. New deals were notched up for the prime-time singing competition in New Zealand and pan-Asia, as well as in Finland.

Another format genre that saw some solid traction at the market was reality. Red Arrow International clinched a number of deals across the globe for its new reality format Buying Blind. Armoza landed its first sale on the new docu-reality show Back to Life. MGM Worldwide Television Distribution did a deal to co-produce and distribute the new docu-reality format Married 10. Passion Distribution and Bomanbridge Media signed on to distribute Gamerz, which promises a fresh twist on reality formats with its incorporation of live eSports.

Factual entertainment proved popular for FremantleMedia, with the sale of its new format The Recording Studio, which recently received a BBC One pilot commission, to DR in Denmark. The company also revealed a new partnership with Kapow, which will gain exclusive production rights to and represent FremantleMedia’s catalog of entertainment formats in Argentina. Meanwhile, The Story Lab and youngest Media announced they are partnering up for the production of digital-first entertainment formats.

Of course, with the appetite for drama still riding high, scripted formats were in demand at the market. Nippon TV’s hit Japanese drama Mother landed the company its first scripted remake deal with Korea’s CJ E&M. “Having announced last year our deal for the Turkish format of Mother (Anne), which has been a ratings success in Turkey, it is an honor to be unveiling our new venture with CJ E&M for the Korean version of Mother,” said Atsushi Hatayama, the president of international business development for Nippon TV, in announcing the new adaptation.

BBC Worldwide scored its first licensing agreement for the scripted format The Last Hours of Laura K, which has multiplatform elements, signing up Rede Globo for a Brazilian adaptation. And the family drama Step Dave is getting a Hungarian treatment from TV2, thanks to a deal with all3media international.

From game shows to factual entertainment and reality, prime-time competitions to scripted fare, the formats that made headlines during MIPCOM showed that there is no one “big thing” dominating the space at the moment. TV Formats Weekly will be keeping a close eye on all the genres making noise in the marketplace as we track the latest trends to emerge in the months ahead of MIPTV and MIPFormats.

Catch up on these stories and more on TVFormats.ws.