OK here’s something potentially quite intriguing – according to Broadcast, C4 are going to try and steal a march on ITV’s Rising Star with The Singer Takes It All, a live singing show hosted by Alan Carr where the people at home will vote in real time with an app, with the stage moving forwards or backwards depending on how well people are doing and the person who stays in the gold zone the longest winning a cash prize.
Of course they should ditch the stage and just have them on a conveyor belt.
So it’s PERPENDICULAR Rising Star then, a show whose performance worldwide has been rather patchier than you might have been led to believe.
C4 head of entertainment Justin Gorman said The Singer Takes It All had been in development since 2013 and will have a different tone to talent shows on rival broadcasters.
The show is “about being in the moment, not about recording contracts”, Gorman said, adding that the concept was “bold and risky”. He said it would be “tongue in cheek”, with Carr bringing levity to proceedings.
DEFINITELY should be a conveyor belt.
Well it did used to be quite exciting when it turned out someone won £40-50k on This Is My Moment, so.
Edit: It’s an Endemol show, here’s their press release.
I’m sure Channel 4 weren’t keen on doing a singing show. What changed?
Also I didn’t know that Rising Star’s performance has been a bit hit & miss. All eyes on America for their version on June 22nd.
In some places it’s been axed mid-run, IIRC, and certainly it’s been a big flop in Brazil.
Lots of people get excited about Israeli formats but the truth is not many are actually that successful outside of home turf. I can’t see Boom! being a massive domestic or worldwide hit, for example, but everyone went crazy for it recently. Everyone’s gone quiet on The Money Pump and Raid the Cage (which everyone APART FROM ME was convinced would be massive).
If a TV company is going to buy an Israeli format the best bet is drama like Showtime did with Homeland.
Still think Rising Star could do well here. But if it gets too sandy each week viewers will grow tired of it.
It’s a baffling case of the Emperor’s new clothes. There is not one single successful Israeli entertainment format. Even Homeland is an American show, with American show runners, American writers and American directors. It’s massively different in concept and execution from Prisoners of War, and I say this as someone who enjoyed both very much.
Meanwhile the UK has produced the likes of Millionaire, Got Talent, Idol, MasterChef, Dancing With the Stars, and Weakest Link and Top Gear. A Brit in America created Survivor and The Apprentice. In scripted we’re responsible for Doctor Who, Downton Abbey, Broadchurch and Sherlock.
And yet many commissioners, both here and abroad, are actively hunting Israeli ideas. At MIP this year the number of talks and forums on “Israeli: the new home of formats” was incredible. There was allegedly one party at which Keshet executives were *literally* put on a pedestal, while people queued to hear them explain how great they were.
Utterly, utterly baffling.
Let us just take a moment to remember the highlight of that last great Israeli breakout hit of ten years ago, . What was that highlight?
Line 1?
“Don’t know.”
Line 2?
“Sorry.”
Line 3?
“No.”
Line 4?
“Completely forgotten. Guaranteed.”
In fairness, from what I understand of the Israeli original, everyone on the line was vetted so they knew the answer.
Yes, I saw the original and that’s correct. It was one of the frustrating things about our version that sometimes a player could have a bank of useless bankers whereas on the original the was always something to haggle for.
We discussed this in a recent training course about TV commissioning (which I highly recommend – if you have at least a couple of TV credits, you can apply via http://www.indietrainingfund.com/courses/development/writing-pitching-and-winning-commissions/ ).
In short, we all agreed that the Israel thing was a fad. But there are other issues going on. At least Israel’s come up with *something* – what has the UK or the US come up with recently? The top 3 from the UKGameshows poll last year were 5MTAF (not recommissioned) and the two remakes of 15-to-1 and Catchphrase.
The ‘Rising Star’ phenom is an interesting one. For those who haven’t been following it, in essence they came up with a neat idea for the heats but didn’t really know how to finish the show. It was improvised as they went along. Worse still, when they came to sell the format at MIP, they said that the show had something like a 45% viewing share when it didn’t really by the usual metric. However, before most people realised this, the ink was already dry on a number of contracts.
We need to differentiate between formats sold and formats actually made. There are some Israeli formatters who basically make their money from the fees they get after MIP, and they don’t particularly care whether their show is made or not. That’s slightly sad and cynical but it’s the way some people work.
There’s a more general problem around with TV entertainment at the moment in that a lot of formats are not really doing the required numbers (e.g. the recent cancellations on Fox). Drama and factual entertainment are going strong.
According to http://www.smartshow.tv also another big new international singing talent show is a big flop in Germany…
‘Keep Your Light Shining’ is a new singing talent show distributed internationally by Global Agency (Turkey). Distributor calls it a “fully interactive talent show” while having viewers’ app as a defining element of the whole format.
‘Keep Your Light Shining’ didn’t start well with its world premiere. The show launched in highly competitive German market with low ratings.
German nr. 2 broadcaster in young 14-49 demo ProSieben aired ‘Keep Your Light Shining’ in 8:15-10:45 prime-time slot as three-episode event in May and June.
‘Keep Your Light Shining’ launched May, 22 with 9.1% share in 14-49 target group (source: AGF/GfK), below 11.4% channel’s season-to-date average or 11.0% May average. Second episode declined to 6.9% and third hit 6.7% season low (0.65 million viewers in the demo, 0.95 million overall). Even in younger 14-39 demo the final show achieved only 8.4%.
Came from Turkey? Seems apt.
Global Agency (Turkey), Armoza (Israel) and Keshet (Israel) are the 3 marketeers in international format business.
The idea was nice, but the execution was God awful (the case with most entertainment television to be honest).
Rising Star really has been hit and miss, and it has clear problems like technology (most countries won’t have the strong infrastructure to support that kind of traffic) and time zones (namely America and Australia, but also Russia and China).
I’ve just invented “appalong” as a new exciting TV buzzword.
Also comes in “appalongable” variety.
I’ve just been reading about it, interesting. They obviously think they have something as they look like they’re going to rush it out in the next eight weeks.
Broadcast
‘He would not confirm when C4 will schedule the show, but it is thought likely that it will play over four weekends, starting in August.’
‘Fronted by Alan Carr, the 4 x 60-minute series features a moving 18-metre stage that can be manipulated by viewers depending on how they rate the act performing.
Viewers will be prompted to vote four times during each performance, using a free app.’
I like the idea of a crowd powered moving stage. David Bodycombe – this is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about with mass home audiences affecting the programme live, I just wish I’d thought of this example first!
I hope they’re just repurposing the track from Ejector Seat.
Honestly if you are going to by an international format at least buy something from the Netherlands or uk. Like buzzer blog said “games are inhertly interactive, when you start to focus on the interactive elements ,you’re screwed” whitch is what isrealian formats are DOING NOTHING BUT THAT. Sigh….. I hope rising star does better here in USA then the million second quiz.
Another clear indication the current C4 management haven’t got a clue what they’re doing.
http://www.whatsontv.co.uk/tv-news/news/frank-skinner-and-sue-perkins-to-co-present-trust-me-im-a-game-show-host-for-itv
I’m baffled they have used Sue but not Mel.
Wouldn’t that be trying to choose between a red apple and a green apple instead of between an apple and an orange?
From MURDER to MORDOR, almost: Mashable have a 3½-minute whatjamacallit (sizzler reel? pitch film?) for ABC’s The Quest by the makers of The Amazing Race.
I’m going to do something really annoying and be gratuitously prejudiced here.
Internally I have dialed down my hopes for this, to “the fantasy elements won’t really properly integrate with the game elements, and this will turn out to basically be Survivor in +1 chainmail”. Which is still not a bad thing in the least, but there’s a difference between a show in which people LARP 24/7 with meaningful storyline consequences and a show where all the fantasy trappings are essentially dull cut scenes to get from one probably-seen-it-all-before game to the next. Which is a shame, because if it were good, it could be really, really spectacular. Basically it needs to be a lot more
IsraeliSouth Korean, or at least a lot more denk.