Format

Leading independent distributor All3Media international has announced Studio Lambert’s BAFTA award-winning format "Race Across the World" will travel to Germany in 2025 on ZDF.

In this unforgettable adventure journey five pairs of candidates discover different landscapes, cultures, historical sites and sights.

The extraordinary factual entertainment format is planned as a six-part series for spring 2025 on ZDF, and planning is currently underway for casting and filming in autumn produced by TOWER, an All3Media company.

The original hugely popular BAFTA award-winning version, produced by Studio Lambert, has run for three seasons and one celebrity season in the UK on the BBC, with a new season of both the original and celebrity version commissioned. Race Across the World was the BBC’s biggest factual entertainment brand of 2023 with the first episode of the celebrity version averaging 6.2m viewers, making it the joint top episode of the brand so far (alongside episode one of series 3 of Race Across the World) and the biggest factual entertainment episode this year across the market for a new series.

Race Across the World has seen additional international success in Denmark where three seasons from Strong Productions have aired in on TV2, Finland, where the first series will premiere next month on MTV Katsomo and MTV3, produced by Mosikto Televosion, and the Netherlands, where the first season has aired on RTL, produced by IDTV, an All3Media company.

With only the cash equivalent of the airfare to fly the route, every team has to find a quick and inexpensive way through countries and climates without the modern trappings of smartphones, internet access and credit cards. Be it on foot, by boat, by bike or on a camel, the team that reaches the final check point first wins the prize money.

On their adventurous journey through some of the most beautiful scenery in the world, teams must forge bonds across cultural boundaries and rely on the kindness of strangers to have the best chance of winning. If they run out of money, they have to work to replenish their travel budget. The candidate couples discover the impressive cultures of the different regions, learn how climate change affects everyday life, cross impressive landscapes and learn more about the fascinating world history.

ZDF’s series is produced by TOWER (producer: Kirstin Benthaus-Gebauer). The editors at ZDF are Friederike Haedecke, Johannes Geiger, Thorsten Haas and Daniel Nemetschek.