The Wit’s Fresh TV sessions are the best way to catch up with the latest in factual, entertainment and reality shows at MIP. This afternoon, CEO Virginia Mouseler took us on a super-fast on-screen stroll, whose biggest themes include sports, coaching, education, emotainment, social experiments, and dating — an especially prolific category this year.
Below, here’s what you can expect to see making waves in international television in the next year, with distributors in brackets following the titles.
Football Nightmares (FremantleMedia International)
A Second League football team with a poor record of performance is rescued by football experts, who have one week to motivate players, advise the coach, and up their game for a championship. The show is notably character-driven, with characters “playing their role at the utmost,” Mouseler promised.
The Gym Teacher (Nexiko Media)
A famous fitness coach returns to his high school alma mater to transform students’ attitudes toward physical education using fun and, dare we say it, unconventional methods.
Count With Me (La Competencia/Televisa)
Continuing the trend of coaching and aid, in Count With Me, a numerology expert helps people solve life dilemmas with his unique method, “the hologramme of truth”—in which you have to literally face yourself (or a 3D version, anyway).
This is Not a Hotel (Talpa Global)
Six spoiled youths are forced to stand on their own two feet for the first time… by leaving home, living together, and trying to take care of everything on their own. In phase two of the programme, the house they share transforms into a hotel with a variety of guests, forcing them to learn the finer arts of hospitality as well. What could go wrong?
My First Holiday (FremantleMedia International)
Two ordinary people experience their very first overseas vacation … whose destination they only learn once at the airport. Incidentally, it’s hosted by “a beautiful girl who is the next Miss Finland,” said Mouseler, in the event you were curious.
Sleeping with the Enemy (Fox Networks Group Italy)
Two sets of pairs with opposing personalities are forced to live together for five days, with one constraint: They can never get away from one another, and each day, their physical distance is reduced, the hope being that “they will end up in the same bed” at the end, said Mouseler. “They don’t have to do anything in the bed, but there is a dating element hidden in the last episode.”
Welcome to My Life (Newen Distribution)
A single contestant dives into the lives of four suitors without ever seeing them. She shares a day with the suitors’ friends and family, and experiences an activity chosen by the suitors; at the end, she finally meets them, but the general idea is that she falls in love with one before that, much the same way Shawn of Boy Meets World fell in love with Angela after spending a day digging through her handbag.
The Best Matchmakers (Newen Distribution)
Three matchmakers compete to find the right partner for a singleton in hopes of winning a cash prize. Each organises one romantic date, then they watch and comment on the dates together. Once the dates are through, the singleton chooses his or her favourite partner.
This Time Next Year (Two Four)
In this emotional show, ordinary people walk through a “This Time” door and make a pledge for a year from now—for something they want to be, or achieve (such as a breast augmentation, in one contestant’s case). They then reappear through a new door, “Next Year,” after a year has passed for them, to reveal whether they achieved their lofty goal.
Suspect (VIMN)
A duo of “truth investigators” helps people who suspect a friend or family member of hiding a secret, then investigate to uncover what’s really happening behind the scenes. Remember the show Catfish? This comes from the same producers, which provides a small sense of the show’s “feel”; in one of the earliest reveals, some down-home dudes discover their “suspect” is taking mysterious pills because he is undergoing a gender transition.
“Transgender as a secret is also a big theme this year,” said Mouseler. Say no more!
