Format

Banijay Rights’ epic live game show, Beat Your Host, will travel to the Middle East for the first time as MBC commissions Cedars Art Production (Sabbah Brothers), a leading local production company, to produce a regional version of the format, Beat the Star. Locally entitled, Eghleb El Sakka (إغلب السقا) or Beat El Sakka, the contestants are all Arabic celebrities competing to beat the Egyptian action movie megastar, Ahmad El Sakka (إغلب السق). The show will premiere on MBC on 23rd April and will air daily during the holy month of Ramadan 2020.

Already adapted in more than ten countries, this studio-based entertainment format from Brainpool has been running in Germany on Pro7 for more than ten years. The host makes a cash wager to a contestant on a challenge, whether it’s playing soccer underwater, answering questions or racing around a BMX course. If the challenger wins, they take home the cash, but if they lose, the money jackpots to the following week.

Following the popularity of the first series, MBC has also commissioned a second series of the hit Banijay Rights’ knockout format, Strike, from Egyptian production house, EPRODUCERS. The family gameshow from H2O Productions uses trivia and ten-pin bowling. Two celebrities help a contestant to try and win a big cash prize by answering multiple-choice questions and bowling, but a single mistake and the contestant may leave the show empty-handed.

Finally, Wellcom Advertising has secured the rights to Banijay’s famous 60-minute music reality competition, Popstars, in Algeria. The format has been adapted in more than 40 countries; however this is the first time the format has been licensed for an Algerian audience.

From the first auditions through to the winners’ first outings as a band, Popstars focuses on all the things you don’t see in big, shiny-floor reality shows: the contestants’ personalities and relationships, as well as their intimate emotional journeys, as they cope with being away from home in a shared house and strive to shine out from the crowd in one of the most high-pressure situations they’ve ever experienced. Popstars follows the ongoing saga of goals reached and missed, alliances formed and broken and personal limits pushed to the extreme.

Continuing its global success, legendary adventure gameshow, Fort Boyard, is also set to air another series later this year in Morocco. The format, which celebrated its 30-year anniversary last year, now has more than 1700 episodes to its name in 30 territories, including France, Germany, Sweden, Canada, Russia and the UK. An original format of Adventure Line Productions, this adventure reality series sees contestants face a plethora of physical and mental challenges, pushing them to their limits and beyond.

Samia Moktar, Sales Manager at Banijay Rights comments, “The appetite for our formats just keeps growing in the Middle East. It’s really exciting to see new commissions for Strike and Popstars and to witness these shows being adapted for local Middle Eastern audiences. Beat Your Host, will undoubtedly be received with as much enthusiasm and we look forward to evolving the shows for the maximum enjoyment of Middle Eastern viewers.”