Variety shows venture new formats
From left, Luda of Cosmic Girls, U-Know Yunho of TVXQ and model-turned-actress Jung Hye-sung pose for a photo during a press conference of a new variety show "Dunia: Into a new world," based on mobile game "Durango: Wild Lands” / Courtesy of MBC
By Park Jin-hai
Amid a flood of cookie-cutter copies of similar reality shows either on cooking or travel that could cause fatigue for many viewers, public TV stations are trying to make breakthroughs with fresh formats.
MBC launched a new “unreal variety” show “Dunia: Into a new world,” Sunday. The heavily publicized show, based on Nexen's popular mobile game “Durango: Wild Lands,” is an experimental one where, for the first time, a TV variety show is collaborating with a mobile game.
Meanwhile, KBS will launch a new variety show “Celebrity PD,” where celebrities have all the responsibility of planning and producing a show. Instead of entertainment, KBS's news and current affairs is in charge of the show's production. The broadcaster also plans to premiere “Trick & True,” a “science-magic” converged variety show.
In “Dunia,” 10 cast members, including TVXQ's U-Know Yunho, Ghanaian television personality Sam Okyere, Kwon Hyun-bin from “Produce 101 Season 2” and Luda from K-pop girl group “Cosmic Girls,” land on a virtual reality world called “Dunia” through a time warp, perform missions and try to survive in the wild.
As opposed to reality shows that have thrived for the past decade, in “Dunia” cast members face fake and intended situations but the ways in which they face the situation and solve the mission are real.
In the first episode, the show's subtitles revealed that the cast members were acting in a situation where they had to obtain objects such as fish or fruit, and the TV screen showed instantly their scores earned as seen on game screens. Subtitles also reflected the game players' words, ignoring grammar and spelling.
Above all, the way it engages the participation of its viewers is most interesting. In the situation where two cast members' opinions collide after hearing suspicious sounds outside, viewers were asked to choose between two choices ― to go outside and check or to hide and discuss the situation ― in a one-minute long real-time text message with votes, the scenes were shown accordingly. The scenes shot under choices that were not selected by viewers will be released via Naver TV.
“The text messaging voting is our signature and it will appear in each of our episodes,” said show producer Park Jin-kyung, whose previous works include MBC's “My Little Television” which enjoyed great popularity by being an interactive TV show featuring personal internet broadcasting.
Culture critic Jung Duk-hyun called it a “mutant variety show” and said, “Everything is so fresh to the point that it can be received as foreign.” Viewers' responses have been mixed. Many said the game-like show looked “fresh” but others said they were uncomfortable with its format and language.
A scene from KBS' pilot program "Celebrity PD" / Courtesy of KBS
KBS, which ran a pilot program “Celebrity PD” last month, plans to launch the same-named show where celebrities, instead of producers, plan, cast and shoot each episode on subjects they are interested in.
“The program started from the idea of the curiosity that non-professionals end up with when they get to helm a production. We figured that they will get to approach it in a way from textbook production methods and that might be fresh to viewers,” said show producer Kim Min-hee.
The current formats tried by major broadcasters' TV shows have been closely related to leadership changes at public broadcasters KBS and MBC. Their politically-biased former presidents, who flexed their muscles on news coverage, were dismissed and the two companies are undergoing an array of changes.
MBC's new president Choi Seung-ho who was appointed in December last year is encouraging staff to come up with fresh ideas by allowing the “freedom to fail.” He previously expressed his determination to invest more in production to improve content quality this year, even if it means as much as a 70 billion won deficit to the company's bottom line.