Formats round-up: Africa’s ABY Media lands ‘Blind Dating’; TGC Global rolls out ‘Swap Project’; Taiwan’s TAICCA picks LEAP partners

Blind Dating (Source: GRB Media Ranch)

GRB’s ‘Blind Dating’ lands in Africa

Africa’s ABY Media has picked up long-running French Canadian show Blind Dating from GRB Media Ranch, which has also acquired a medical-focused docuseries.

Blind Dating is a studio-based gameshow that sees three single men and three single women attempting to make the perfect match without seeing each other to win a date.

GRB Media Ranch’s president, Sophie Ferron, said: “The format sale of Blind Dating is especially meaningful to me. I grew up on the set of this series, as my father created and produced it in Canada.

“It remained a huge hit and was remade twice for new generations. He passed away last year and would be proud to see it travel.”

The Ferron-led firm has also picked up Inventi Media Group’s Medical Stories, which airs on PBS. The 39 x 30-minute show claims to “capture the experiences of medical and emergency personnel and their heroic actions and extraordinary measures taken while battling life-threatening conditions of critically ill or injured patients.”

TGC Global rolls out Swap Project

LA-based TGC Global Entertainment is launching comedy social-experiment format The Swap Project at MIPTV in Cannes.

The format, which has been co-developed and is co-owned by TGC and Fuji Television Network, launched on the Japanese network in February and is a fish-out-of-water format that sees two people from different sides of the world but with the same occupation swap lives for a week.

TGC GE and Fuji TV will share distribution, with Fuji Creative Corp, the distribution arm of Fuji TV, handling Asia and TGC GE representing the format in the rest of the world.

Taiwan’s TAICCA picks LEAP partners

Korean firm Something Special and Hong Kong-based AR Asia Productions have been selected by the Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA) to spearhead the LEAP Creative Lab project.

The initiative aims to increase the creativity of Taiwanese producers through immersive learning experiences and collaborative development opportunities.

LEAP will run all year and is to be led by Something Special and AR Asia, with activities spanning throughout 2024. Divided into two integral parts, LEAP comprises a masterclass in Taipei and a creative development workshop in Seoul.