Coming up on TV: Kids and family-centred game shows
Audrey Stuart

CANNES(France)—Kids parenting adults, dumbed-down game shows with a family theme, and the inevitable sprinkling of sex are shaping up as the new TV hits in coming months. The craze for not-too-smart game shows sparked by the phenomenal US success of “Are you smarter than a 5th grader?” is still on a roll worldwide with no sign of slacking off, according to Virginia Mouseler, who heads up the TV market tracking and research agency, The Wit.
But strategy or just plain luck are more important than brains or general knowledge in the new slew of games being snapped up by thousands of TV buyers in Cannes for the five-day MIPTV trade fair. The latest trend are simple family-centred shows that “turn our memories into cash”, Mouseler said.
The answer to taking home cash prizes from US “Amne$sia” or Argentina’s “Love or for Money” is pretty simple homework — key dates in a family’s history, the name of the mother-in-law’s cat, a best friend’s middle name or a wife’s ring size. The family too is due to hit the dance-floor, with mums and dads and daughters and sons set to turn the tables on the celebrities who until now have hogged the limelight in smash hit TV dance competitions such as Britain’s “Strictly Come Dancing” or “Dancing with the Stars”.
In “Your Mama Don’t Dance”, which recently premiered on US cable channel Lifetime, 10 young professional dancers pair off with their novice mother or father and face the uphill task of teaching slick dance routines to far from fleet-footed parents in front of judges and TV viewers. And dancing is just one aspect of the challenge, with family relationships and emotions also coming into play.
This trend to kid-power is generally on the rise on small screens, Mouseler said. In the BBC’s “The Smoke House”, a group of children who hate cigarettes take on the challenge of helping parents kick the habit, laying down tough regimes to help them get clean. Kids too are the stars in a Japanese TV hit aired recently in Italy called “Mi Raccomando” (Old Enough) in which six-year-olds prove they are old enough for more responsibility by performing tasks such as going to the nearby pharmacy to buy the right medicine.