As you’ll know if you’ve ever watched The Wit’s presentations to a packed Grand Auditorium at MIPCOM and MIPTV, the French firm has its finger on the pulse of new shows and digital content across the world.
At the TellyCast Digital Content Forum this week, managing director Caroline Servy presented its latest snapshot, focusing on digital formats – for which a small but growing number are being licensed in multiple territories.
The key theme: “A generation of creators have left their bedrooms,” said Servy, noting that YouTubers and Twitch streamers are venturing out into the world with big, bold ideas.
One famous example is Kaizen: One Year to Climb Everest, where French YouTuber ‘Inoxtag’ spent a year training to climb Mount Everest, producing a documentary feature in the process. It premiered in cinemas, then was aired on TV channel TF1 as well as living on YouTube.
Another format, Desert Warrior, sees YouTuber Otto Bulletproof – a former paratrooper – taking teams on an adventure in Namibia’s most hostile environments, dealing with dangerous animals, disappearing supplies and punishing conditions. It launched on streaming service Joyn two weeks before YouTube, in another windowing strategy.
Hunting Season: Most Wanted involves 15 Dutch celebrities escaping from a high-security prison, chased by three hosts from digital brand STUK TV. The first episode was watched more than a million times on YouTube in its first few days on the platform, said Servy.
The Getaway, meanwhile, is an entertaining reality contest from Wendover Productions with a twist on the ‘betrayal’ genre made so popular by The Traitors. Here, six creators go on a road trip with $10,000 to keep safe, while trying to work out which of them is the ‘snitch’ sabotaging their plans. The twist? All of them have been told they are the snitch!
Servy also highlighted Poker Society, a French reality contest with 10 celebrities and influencers competing for a €100k poker prize in a converted warehouse, and Surrounded, a format putting someone with controversial opinions in the middle of a group of people who have the opposite views, and then debating them one by one.
Dress to Impress IRL in France takes a Roblox game as its starting point, giving creators 5-10 minutes to create an outfit for a randomly-selected theme, before they parade down a runway and are rated by judges. La Velada del Ańo IV, meanwhile, is n an annual creator-boxing event organised by Spanish streamer Ibai Llanos. Broadcast on his Twitch channel, the event took place this year in football club Real Madrid’s stadium.
Other shows in The Wit’s showcase included adult animated series The Amazing Digital Circus, created by YouTuber Gooseworx and released simultaneously on YouTube and Netflix; Very Parivarik, an Indian comedy series produced with Ikea and Urban Company; music mockumentary The Charlie Puth Show, which was a Roku Original; and Basque-language ‘shortcom’ Itsatsita, an Instagram-native show about two people in ER after… let’s just call it an unfortunate sexual liaison…
