The Friday Format Sweep: MIPCOM 2026 Special.

Nothing in Cannes is a bare idea.

TL;DR: MIPCOM opens on Monday 12 Oct, and the format slates have one thing in common. Almost nothing is paper. Buyers want proof, so distributors are bringing shows that have already aired, been commissioned, or at least been tested as a one-off special. The trends: simple game mechanics, dating with a device, casts of 100, creators as talent and games as borrowed IP.

Plus a long service medal for Tim Crescenti of Small World.

Proof over pitch

MIPCOM runs 12 to 15 October at the Palais in Cannes, with more than 10,000 people expected. I've been through the slates from the majors, the indies, Japan, Korea and the Low Countries. The pattern is hard to miss.

The days of walking into Cannes with a paper format and a good sizzle are mostly gone. Of the titles getting the most attention this year, almost all have a local commission, a transmission, a second series or a pilot special behind them. Even Love on the Menu, which looks like a pure paper launch from Nippon TV, aired as a 90-minute test in March.

That tells you where the risk now sits. It's been moved off the buyer and onto the originating broadcaster and the producer. For anyone in development, the question isn't "is it a good idea?" anymore. It's "where will it get made first?"

Five trends from the slates

1. Games you get in seconds. The Golden Elevators (Talpa, for ITV with Richard Osman) is ten players choosing lift A or B. Caught in the Middle (Talpa) has 100 outsiders closing in on a couple. Never Look Back (Nippon TV) is a celebrity game about not turning round. One choice, big jeopardy, explained in a sentence. As Talpa's Sebastian van Barneveld puts it, buyers want "a strong, instantly recognisable visual identity and a game mechanic that can be understood within seconds".

2. Dating needs a device. The romance is the same, the gimmick does the selling. Date Knight (Banijay, DR) has singles dating in character as knights and witches. The Big Date (BBC Studios, 3Cat) tells 100 singles an AI has already matched them. Silent Attraction (BBC Studios, SVT) puts conservative men and progressive women on dates where talking is banned. Marriage Market (Fox, Joyn) hands the choice to the families. Eden (Seven.One, Joyn) adds lie detectors.

3. The number is the hook. 100 Knives (Banijay), 100 Cooks (WBITVP), 100 singles in The Big Date, 99 hopefuls in Korea's From Unknown to Legend, a duo against 100 in Caught in the Middle. A big cast reads as scale on a poster, but most of these shows are in one location.

4. Creators as cast. Terrain: Battle of the Flags (Primitives, ZDF) puts ten creators in a self-shot capture-the-flag game, released on YouTube before linear. Neo Match Up (ZDF Studios) is hosted by a comedian who'd played the game on YouTube for years. Netflix Spain and Fremantle have started Plex: Última partida, fronted by YouTuber Plex. And Banijay is buying creator-led formats.

5. Games are the new borrowed IP. Wordle (NBCU) leads it, with Scrambled Up (now Banijay) and Captcha (Seven.One, La 2) alongside. Monopoly, Cluedo and Catan are all in TV development. The brand awareness is already paid for.

One more worth watching: AI has moved from the production process into the format itself. The Big Date's AI matchmaker, Captcha's "I'm not a robot" tests and the generative AI reconstructions in WBITVP's The Dark Side all put it on screen.

Five to watch

Caught in the Middle (Talpa, SBS6). A couple in the middle of a round arena, 100 outsiders with LED target rings closing in. The outsiders have to guess the answer the couple will give. Match it and you're out. It's Family Fortunes and Pointless turned round, with the crowd guessing the contestants. It started as a zombie-apocalypse idea, was pitched dark like Squid Game, and ended up as family entertainment. SBS6's best new game show in six years, over 1 million viewers, a second series in January, and versions coming for Seven in Australia and Atresmedia in Spain.

Wordle (NBCUniversal, NBC). 26 half hours with Savannah Guthrie, Jimmy Fallon's company and the New York Times all on board. Teams of three, five letters, yellow and green. Played over 5 billion times last year, and the selling line is "no trivia questions". The challenge for buyers is turning a solo breakfast habit into a team sport in prime time. And a German or Spanish word list isn't a translation job. It's a new game.

Love on the Menu (Nippon TV). Eight single professional chefs in a villa, cooking their way to a match, with anonymous dish votes winning perks like private dates. It aired as a 90-minute special in March and is pitched at the UK and Europe. Casting is the risk. Eight telegenic, single, professional chefs free for weeks in a villa is a short list anywhere.

Neo Match Up (ZDF Studios, ZDFneo). A host and a celebrity race to match five strangers to their answers on hobbies, fears and edgier subjects. Follow the money: one studio, a host, a guest and five members of the public. ZDF Studios calls it "endlessly renewable through casting". The edgier topics suit a youth slot, but a family slot will need them softened.

The Chase Around the World (ITV Studios, ITV). The Chasers on location, with pairs racing through Rome to Bradley Walsh for £100,000. It's a super format managing its own franchise, the same thinking behind DWTS: The Next Pro (BBC Studios) and Bachelor Mansion Takeover (WBITVP).

Deals done before the market

• Banijay buys Scrambled Up. Global format and finished-tape rights to the studio word game from Michael Eisner's Tornante Company.
• Talpa keeps selling. The Winner Takes It All goes to RTVE in Spain after France Télévisions. Catch Us is with TV4, ProSieben, the Netherlands and Hungary. Let's Play Ball is in French Canada and Finland, and The Alliance has a second series on Prime Video India.
• Studio82 options Battle in the Box for the US. This one is the exception that proves the rule. The Korean format ran one series on Dave with Jimmy Carr in 2024 and wasn't renewed, then went to Prime Video Sweden. A UK miss hasn't put off a US buyer. Are they buying the format, or the Korean original and the Swedish version?
• Marriage Market was built to travel. Fox developed it with ProSiebenSat.1 and TF1, launched it on Joyn in Germany first, and the US version follows on Fox.
• Renewals and revivals. BBC Studios renewed Dancing with the Stars with Polsat as part of a 200-hour deal. Sat.1 is bringing Deal or No Deal back, with the format now running in 13 territories.
• Streamers lean in. Netflix has The New Stanford Prison Experiment in production and Roku is rebooting Battle of the Streaming Stars with celebrities.

Expect the big format sales to be saved for Monday and Tuesday. I'll pick those up next Friday.

Long service medal: Tim Crescenti

This is Tim Crescenti's 54th trip to Cannes for MIP and MIPCOM. It's where we first met. If anyone has earned a long service medal on the Croisette, it's Tim.

He arrives this year with one of the more interesting deals of the market. On 8 September Fuji Television named Small World International Format Television, the company Tim founded with Colleen Crescenti in 2005, as a non-exclusive representative for its format library worldwide. He'll also advise on Fuji's new original IP.

The track record explains why. At Fox World he rolled out Joe Millionaire and The Simple Life internationally. At Small World his credits include Dragons' Den, Silent Library and I Survived a Japanese Game Show. And Better Late Than Never, from Korea's Grandpas Over Flowers, was the first Korean format sold in the US. It has since gone to 18 territories.

Through a development lens, this is the Asian format pipeline coming full circle. Tim made his name bringing Japanese and Korean ideas to the West when few others would. Now a Japanese broadcaster is hiring him to do it on purpose, and to help shape the ideas before they're made. Fuji's MIPCOM launch is Tri Tag, at the Treasure Box Japan showcase on Monday. Worth watching to see if that's the first one Tim takes to US buyers.

What it means for development

If you're taking a format to market, the bar has moved. A good idea gets you a meeting. A local commission, a pilot special or a second series gets you a deal. Simple mechanics, a visual you know at a glance, and a cast that renews itself are what buyers are asking for. Build those in before you pitch.

If you want to know whether your format will hold up before it gets there, that's what the Pre-Mortem is for, learn more on my website.

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, and 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.

Sources: Broadcast International Hot Picks, Deadline MIPCOM Dozen, Realscreen, C21, Variety, Señal News, TTV News, Episode, Advanced Television, ITV Press Centre and distributor releases, 14 September to 8 October 2026.