Friday Format Sweep — 16 October 2026

This week in formats

Six new format moves cleared trade press confirmation in the week of 9 to 16 October 2026, the same week MIPCOM ran in Cannes, 12 to 15 October. Betrayal and hidden-role deception did the heaviest lifting again this week: three of the six commissions run on a version of that mechanic. Quiz is travelling too, with a concentric-circle format and a baseball-themed trivia show both landing in new territories.

As always, this is the confirmed list, not the rumoured one. Each entry below cleared independent verification against a primary trade or broadcaster source, not just a listing page or a secondhand repost.

Six confirmed moves

• Yakyu-Q-Oh (Baseball Quiz King) (Japan, Fuji Television): Baseball trivia played out as an actual nine-inning game. (Fuji TV, PR TIMES, 10 Oct)
• Tempting Fortune (Spain, Mediaset España; format by Voltage TV, dist. Cineflix Rights): Strangers on a trek buy comfort out of their own shared prize pot. (FormulaTV, 9 Oct)
• Werewolves (Norway, TV 2, Mastiff Norway; format by Banijay, dist. StudioCanal): Hidden-role social deduction in a forest-village setting. (Realscreen, 15 Oct)
• Assassins (USA, Peacock, B17 Entertainment, Sony Pictures Television): Every player is secretly both hunter and target, no bystanders. (TheWrap, 13 Oct)
• The Final Circle (Romania, Kanal D; format by Warner Bros ITVP, created by Satisfaction, France): Fifty players advance through six concentric circles of harder cognitive tests. (Revista Biz, 12 Oct)
• A.S.S. – Anti Survival Show (Hungary, RTL; format by Talpa Studios and Signal.Stream, Netherlands): Players choose between a deprived survival beach and a luxury yacht. (C21Media, 13 Oct)

Assassins is the one to watch for a different reason: it is Scarlett Johansson's first credit as a reality producer, and its hunter-and-target premise sits close enough to Werewolves and other hidden-role formats to be worth a swap test before anyone pitches it as new.

The MIPCOM question

Only one of this week's six moves was a MIPCOM deal in the strict sense. C21Media's own report on A.S.S. – Anti Survival Show opens with "MIPCOM:" as its dateline and says RTL announced the Hungarian commission "on the second day of Mipcom." That is a genuine market story.

The Final Circle landed in Romania on 12 October, the first day of the market, and Werewolves landed in Norway on 15 October, the last day. Neither article mentions MIPCOM at all; both read as straight acquisition announcements agreed and released on their own timeline. Tempting Fortune and Yakyu-Q-Oh were both published before the market even opened.

That split backs up the point made in this week's other two Format Forward pieces. The MIPCOM Special sweep on 9 October argued that almost nothing going into this year's market was a paper format, buyers were backing shows with a transmission, a second series or a pilot already behind them. The follow-up post on the six formats left out of that sweep pushed the same point further: Stacks of Cash was ordered by CBS on 30 September, and RTVE commissioned The Tunnel back in May, months before the market opened. The real trading window for a proven mechanic is not four days in Cannes, it's the whole year, and MIPCOM is where the paperwork catches up.

For development teams, the practical read is the same one: a market dateline is not where format decisions get made any more. It's where they get announced.

Where next

So here's the question I'd put to development teams: if MIPCOM is where proven mechanics get announced rather than where ideas get bought, where would you actually get your next format made first, and why there?

Jonathan Glazier Format creator and executive producer, editor of altMedia.

TV format consultant and former BBC Head of Light Entertainment and International Formats

I am dyslexic. AI helps me make this readable. The thoughts and opinions are my own. There are no auto-generated articles and I read and research with rigour.