| RUSSIA
Old Soviet formats appeared on the market in the 80's when the domestic program "What? Where? When?" pioneered on Russian TV and brought encouraged intellectual viewers to participate in the game where viewers asked questions, and a super intelligent team that combined a number of intellectuals of different professions was trying to answer them.
The new wave of foreign television formats came in 1990's with the appearance of Endemol and Strix formats on TV. "Who wants to be a Millionaire", "Big Brother", "Survivor", "The Weakest Link", "Idols" were successfully adapted in Russia. The variety of foreign formats - reality shows, scripted formats, games, variety, entertainment, factual, daily soap operas, and sitcoms - is available today on the Russian market. Many foreign companies are coming in co-production with Russian companies to produce shows for local audience.
Today, Russia is a major purchaser of programming abroad. "Star Factory", "The Last Hero", "People's Artist" and other programs well known in Russia are licensed international formats that are popular in the majority of countries where television exists. The first Russian reality show, "Behind Glass", although formally an original Russian product, was actually a variation of the popular European reality show "Big Brother".
The production of domestic formats is rapidly developing. New domestic formats appeared and became very successful. Some local formats reached international status. Formats "House" and "House 2"/ "How to Build Your Love" (produced by Russian TV Channel TNT) performed very well on the market. "House 2" was acquired by the US giant Sony Pictures. This is the first time an original Russian reality show has been bought by a global media corporation. In "House 2" viewers daily observe the relations between 15 young people who simultaneously build a house and their personal lives. The goal of the participants on the show is to start a family and show the sincerity of their feelings not only to each other, but also to television viewers. The winning couple, which receives the house worth $120,000, is chosen by vote of the viewers. The program has already entered the "Russian Book of Records" as the country's longest-running daily reality show for being on the air for more than a year.
Moscow based VID produces large-scale reality shows including six seasons of "The Last Hero" (Russian version of "Survivor", "Wait for Me", famous domestic game shows "Field of Wonders" and many others. AMEDIA introduced successful sitcoms "My Beautiful Nanny", "Children, Luba and the Factory", "Don't Be Pretty" aired on CTC. AFL Productions, Russian based independent producer and distributor of television formats ("Merry Family", "Bachelors in the town", "Wild & Crazy", "Comedy Cocktail" that aired on CTC and TNT), has signed an agreement with Canada based company Just for Laughs for production and distribution of new television project entitled "Naked and Funny".
With the rapid growth of domestic formatting programming and clones of world famous international shows, more international companies involved in production and distribution of scripted formats, reality shows, games, soap operas, entertainment shows find their niche on Russian market.
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Who Wants to be a Millionaire / Celador
Love Bugs in Russia
Broadcast on: TNT
First Broadcast: Feb. 13, 2003
When aired: Weekly
Duration: 45 min
Share (max): 18,5%
A worldwide success for several years now, "Love Bugs" has been produced in France, Spain, Italy, Poland and Greece, to name just a few. It also caught Russia 's attention, where interactive elements such as ring tones and video downloads have been developed for mobile phones from the format. |
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