Fox Alternative Entertainment, a major production company in the US has signed an option deal regarding South Korea’s revolutionary music game show.
FormatEast and Fox Alternative Entertainment have reached an option deal agreement of format production and distribution on Korean music game show ‘Lotto Singer’, FormatEast announced on 25th of November.
FormatEast, the global distributor of Lotto Singer (a music game show currently airing on one of the Korea’s cable channels, MBN) has concluded an option deal with Fox Alternative Entertainment (FAE) – Fox’s own in-house production company affiliated with its US broadcast network, FOX. FAE hereby acquires the rights to produce and air Lotto Singer on terrestrial broadcasters including FOX as well as major cable broadcasters in both US and Europe.
Fox Network, the parent company of FAE, as the first broadcaster to spot the potential of Korean unscripted music show entering the US, is known for its preference for a splendid music show among 4 major terrestrial broadcasters in the US. With its production of MBN’s ‘The Masked Singer’ Season 1~4 and CJ ENM’s ‘I Can See Your Voice’ Season 1, it is currently leading the Korean large-scale music show boom in the US as well as in Europe. Rob Wade, president of FOX’s entertainment division who led the deal, is known as a professional producer who has produced a variety of large-scale music shows, including ‘Dancing with the Stars,’ ‘The X Factor,’ and ‘America’s Got Talent.’
FormatEast, the global distributor of Lotto Singer, is a 100% subsidiary company of SBS founded in December 2018 and the first company in Korea to research, develop and distribute formats. For two-years in a row, FormatEast has been running the “FormatEast Creative Lab” – a project of developing globalized format – with support of KOCCA (Korea Content Creative Agency). Lotto Singer started from a paper format that was co-developed by FormatEast and the creator of The Masked Singer, WonWoo-Park. It has started its production and has been airing on MBN, a Korean cable channel, since October 2020 and its final episode is set to air in mid-January next year. Lotto Singer is a music game show with 45 singers from all kinds of music genres. It has been gaining a lot of interest with its unique concept which gives the viewers at home the opportunities to win cash prizes if they correctly bet which 6 out 45 singers will get the highest audience score.
IlJoong-Kim, Executive Director of FormatEast, said, “As Fox group leads the global expansion of Korean unscripted formats, it is definitely meaningful that Fox group has once again bought the latest music game show in Korea. Korean music game show goes beyond the simple and repetitive performance scenes and incorporates various elements that bring families together as they guess the results of the games and enjoy the show. Hence this has recently become one of the most preferable trend in the global market. From paper format idea to actually airing the show on TV domestically, and now its entrance to the US market – all of these have taken less than two years, which is definitely an amazing achievement for Korean format industry.”
Upon this option deal with FAE, FormatEast aims to expand Lotto Singer’s entrance to other Asian territories as well as Middle East and North Africa.