Your monthly breakdown of the biggest moves in formats and factual, from YouTube strategies and creator deals to new commissioning updates.
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What’s Inside:
- Wanna Bet?’s Winning Combo
- YouTube Optimization: Partnerships to Scale
- Reinventing Commissioning for the New Age
- Criminal Minds
- Making a Breakthrough
- The Month in Real Talk
- Resurrections & Relocations
- Going Digital First
Wanna Bet?’s Winning Combo
For more than four decades, Wetten, dass..? has entertained German families on Saturday nights. Thomas Gottschalk hosted the show—in which ordinary people attempt improbable physical feats, encouraged by celebrity guests—for much of its original run on ZDF, which ended in 2014, before returning for a series of specials in 2021. Even after that long hiatus, the iconic institution delivered for the German pubcaster, scoring market shares of more than 40%. That success prompted the inevitable question: “How can we continue this success?” Nadine Kerstan, EP of the series, tells ScreenMDM. “How can we bring this entertainment show that people obviously still love and want into 2026 with audiences who have different needs now and use social media?”
Enter Bill and Tom Kaulitz, the widely recognizable brothers at the center of Tokio Hotel, one of Germany’s most globally successful rock acts, who have a Netflix series and a massive social media following. “They have this authentic way of engaging with the audience,” Kerstan says.
The move to make them the successors to Gottschalk is less a handover and more a natural evolution, Kerstan says, with the DNA of the show remaining intact while “adding something new to it—opening the door to something new to hopefully a younger audience that will get to know the format and, of course, keeping the fans who have loved Wetten, dass..? for the last 40 years.”
YouTube Optimization: Partnerships to Scale
Merzigo expanded its digital monetization deal with Banijay Rights, taking on an additional 9,000 hours in the factual and lifestyle realms. The two companies first announced a pact in March, encompassing 8,000 hours. The deal includes MasterChef Universe, Mr Bean TV and Survivor Official TV. Merzigo will use its expertise and proprietary tech to scale the reach of Banijay Rights IP on digital platforms. Meanwhile, chef, TV presenter, and author Mike Reid tapped Banijay Rights to manage his presence across social media platforms. Fremantle, similarly, has been expanding its digital talent portfolio; it has been tapped as the official social media partner worldwide for TV host and food writer Donal Skehan and the indie food production company Appetite Media. Fremantle will lead the publishing and global distribution of digital content derived from several Skehan and Appetite Media titles. U.K. digital entertainment studio Wall of Entertainment enlisted the expertise of Chronicle Media to scale the YouTube audience for its new influencer-led game shows Substitute Teacher and House Rules, both acquired by Tubi in the U.S.
And it’s not just AVOD platforms leaning heavily into the creator economy; Netflix had several of those announcements over the last few weeks, including in the food and lifestyle space, aligning with culinary content creator Nick DiGiovanni and Mythical. Meanwhile, an untitled documentary from Travon Free about the New York Knicks winning their first championship in 50-plus years is being jointly financed by Blink49 Creator Studios and Scott Budnick’s 1Community
Reinventing Commissioning for the New Age: The View from the BBC
The BBC established a new commissioning structure for entertainment under Ed Havard, built around studio entertainment, constructed reality, and features and events. The new structure follows the creation of two director roles for entertainment and factual. Havard serves as director of entertainment at the pubcaster.
“Commissioning needs to evolve so we can serve our audiences and the creative community, right across the U.K.” said Kate Phillips, chief content officer. “The new structure will give us clearer creative focus and simpler routes into commissioning for the hundreds of producers we work with. It also puts us in a strong position for the future by driving digital growth both on and off platform. Our new director of entertainment, Ed Havard, will be carrying this work forward to ensure we keep delivering memorable and much-loved content that brings people of all ages together.”
Criminal Minds
True crime still pays, as evidenced by the raft of headlines about investigations into bad behavior over the last few weeks. ABC News Studios and Candle True Stories are collaborating on a six-part 20/20-branded series exploring some of the U.K.’s most notorious crimes. Sky acquired The Salisbury Poisonings: A Spy Next Door from Propagate Content for broadcast on Sky Documentaries next month. Off the Fence landed the distribution rights to the 90-minute film Crime or Rescue, about a pair of activists who fall in love while risking imprisonment to rescue animals from testing facilities and factory farms.
Making a Breakthrough
Big-name talent, behind and in front of the screen, remains key for global streamers looking to make an impact with their doc commissions. Yesterday alone, Disney+ revealed that R.J. Cutler is directing and producing a documentary on the life of Julie Andrews for launch on the platform next year, while Prime Video announced a feature-length biographical documentary film about Lily Allen.
Amanda Groom, founder and CEO of The Bridge, joined ScreenMDM Talks to offer her takeaways on the key trends that emerged out of Sunny Side of the Doc, including the continued importance of co-productions and PSBs in commissioning high-end docs, the keys to navigating the quest for alternative funding sources, and the role of AI in factual shows.
All of those themes were covered in our pre-Sunny Side of the Doc strand, featured in the June edition of ScreenMDM Factual & Formats Digest. Highlights included conversations with Bo Stehmeier, Off the Fence CEO, on how the company has rebooted its business model under the World Storytelling Media Group; Autentic’s Mirjam Strasser discussing scale on the heels of the company’s acquisition of Albatross World Sales; Serial Maven Studios CEO Solange Attwood on co-production innovation; plus Woodcut Media’s Kate Beal and Scorpion TV’s David Cornwall weighing in on navigating the current climate as indies. You can also find all of our coverage out of Sunny Side, which had its last edition in La Rochelle with some 1,500 delegates, in our dedicated hub for the event.
Resurrections & Relocations
July featured two big format moves in Australia. Australian Ninja Warrior is returning in 2027, with Network 10 on board as the new local broadcaster. It will arrive five years after the end of the format’s run on Nine Network, and Seven Network will become the new Australian home for ITV Studios’ I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! format. The format spent almost a decade on Network 10. Other revivals announced this month: Banijay Rights’ The Face returning to Vietnam after a three-year hiatus; and the Fear Factor brand is returning to Finland as Banijay Entertainment landed the first international remake for Fear Factor: House of Fear. (The format giant also got bigger this month as the Banijay/All3Media merger closed.)
While the megaformats continue to reign supreme, there was a lot of news about first-time remakes this month, beyond the aforementioned Fear Factor: House of Fear, including Talpa Studios’ The Winner Takes It All, Primitives’ adventure reality format The Expedition and Banijay’s Upside Down. There were also a smattering of brand-new commissions, as Netflix committed to a competition show based on the Hasbro board game Monopoly from Studio Lambert; and Channel 4 revealed the pilot for a new game-show format, tentatively titled Your Time Starts Now, from Taskmaster’s Alex Horne and entertainment director Andy Devonshire.
Going Digital First
Tinder and TikTok partnered for Double Date Island, teaming with ITV Studios’ Studio 55 and digital content experts Cowshed Studios. The series, inspired by the dating app’s Double Date feature, was unveiled at Cannes Lions. After joining forces to revive the SupermodelMe reality show as a vertical series, COL Group International’s FlareFlow and Refinery Media unveiled a spin-off for male contestants, SupermodelMe: The Runway Kings. Format development outfit Signal.Stream is bringing third-party outfits into its audience-first IP-development creator network The Outsiders, with Talpa Studios on board as a founding partner.
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