Photo: The Money Pump, one of the many new shows highlighted today
The WIT’s Virginia Mousseler hit the stage before a full auditorium this afternoon.
Cover versions, dating and peer-to-peer recommendations are big this year. Sometimes they even intersect! There are also a lot of community fixes: neighbours or strangers helping others with problems, as well as shows that attempt to reconnect broken families and or improve communities overall. Here they all are!
Beauty and the Beat (Talk to You): The quest for the first female superstar DJ takes place with 10 girls live in a Miami Beach mansion, where they learn how to deejay and produce their own tracks. The winner gets a million-dollar contract for an album and a worldwide tour.
The Winner Is… (Talpa): 64 contestants form 8 categories to compete in singing duels. There is a peer negotiation element where good negotiators can move onto the next stage no matter what the jury’s decision was. The winner takes €1 million.
Copycat Singers (Zodiak Rights): 5 contestants “cover” a popular singer who is also singing in the studio. A celebrity jury, who can only hear them, must guess the who the copycat is and who is the real singer.
Your Face Sounds Familiar (Endemol): Celebrities must impersonate an iconic music performer who is chosen at random when they click on a buzzer. They are awarded points by a jury and competing celebrities. The four with the most points become the finalists, and the winner gets cash for a charity of choice.
The Date Machine (Shine): Three contestants seek love in a revolving shop window of suitors. They must choose by first impression; later, newly-formed couples must answer rapid-fire questions on their first impressions. Then they go on a romantic holiday.
Fools for Love (Banijay): A singleton seeks love among six suitors, some of which are wildly inappropriate: an ex boy or girlfriend, a cougar, etc. Participants can’t see each other but make contact through a latex wall. Various challenges are used to eliminate suitors.
Please Marry My Boy (ITV): 3 mums help their sons meet girl of dreams. Each selects three girls for her son and imposes challenges on the couples, while trying to influence boys’ opinions of girls.
Origins of Love (Banijay): American singletons of Norwegian ancestry seek love among Norwegian immigrants, of which 8 per contestant are chosen to vie for their hearts. They shortlist them and eliminate them; failed love matches return to Norway. Successful couples must decide to stay in the US or move to Norway.
Dear Neighbours, Help Our Daughter Find Love (Keshet): Small-town parents recruit neighbours and community to help them find true love for their daughters, who live in the city. 3 candidates are chosen; none-the-wiser girl returns home and has to pick the man she likes best. The dates are broadcast live on neighbours’ TV; and neighbours vote for the guy they think is best for her.
The Audience (ITV Studios): 50 strangers help 1 person in crisis to make a life-changing decision. For a week, these strangers follow this person around, experiencing every aspect of her life, while telling her what they think the truth is about her situation. Constantly.
Desperate Neighbors (All3Media International): Families in crisis demand help from neighbours. A community meeting unveils the problem, then neighbours must individually decide whether to help the family or not. The family hands over control of their lives for a month, and one or two people become the primary mentors.
Million Dollar Neighbourhood (DRG): Over the course of 10 weeks, 100 families in the same neighbourhood who have an average net worth of $1000 must increase it to reach a collective $1 million net worth. When families do exceptionally well, community awards them $10,000 per week.
Honey, You’re Getting Fat (Shine International): Husbands and wives get overweight partners back in shape by becoming their personal trainers. The more weight the partner loses, the more money the couple wins.
Missing (Nordic World): Parents who have lost a child to “kidnapping” by their ex spouses, who took that child abroad, can investigate their cases further with help from the show’s host, instead of from the authorities (who cannot do anything). Objective is to reunite parents to children. In the first series, 50% of abducted children were reunited with families.
Parents in Prison (Stokvis & Stokvis Content): Children visit parent in jail accompanied by a coach. They ask parent questions they were afraid to ask alone, and tell them how they really feel.
Make Bradford British (BBC WW): People from the same city but diverse backgrounds spend time together in the same house to examine their preconceptions about other sections of society. The experiment reveals clashes as well as shared values between different races, religions and cultures.
Are you Normal? (All3Media): Contestants win money on quest to learn if they’re normal or not. They answer questions using a poll, a jury poll and in-studio demonstrations to find out if they are normal.
The Code (Endemol): Contestants try to add credit to a new credit card by answering questions and choosing a number on a credit/debit keyboard that hides different amounts of money. If their answer is right, the amount of money is added to the card; at the end, they must crack the Code to cash the money on the topped-up card.
The Money Pump (Dori Media): $1,000,000 worth of bills are inserted in glass cells, to which a pump is connected. A pair of contestants must answer each question; while they think about the answer, the pump starts pumping the money out of the cell. The longer they take, the less money there is.
Body & Brain (SevenOne International): Two contestants, “body” and “brain”, team up. The “brain must answer general knowledge questions while the “body” endures extreme physical challenges. In the end, the two compete against each other.
Undercover Massage (Small World IFT): Two contestants compete to identify the mystery celebrity massage therapist taking care of them.
