Industry

On Sunday October 12,  the highly anticipated C21 International Format Awards ceremony took place in Cannes, celebrating the best in global format creativity and innovation. The Spanish adaptation Ángela, produced by Atresmedia, won the award for Best Scripted Format.

The series is the local remake of the UK–Australia co-production Angela Black, globally distributed by All3Media International and originally released in 2021 on BritBox before airing on ITV. The original drama was a co-production between Spectrum Originals and ITV, in collaboration with Two Brothers Pictures, the production company founded by Harry and Jack Williams.

The Spanish version, broadcast on Antena 3 and produced by Buendía Estudios, later became available on Netflix, where it premiered on July 4 and quickly rose to become one of the platform’s most-watched titles. It has remained in the Top 10 Non-English TV series for six consecutive weeks.

With this win, Atresmedia became the only Ibero-American winner at this year’s International Format Awards, where ITV emerged as the overall leader with three major prizes.

Among ITV’s wins was Parents Evening, awarded Best Studio-Based Gameshow Format. Hosted by comedian Romesh Ranganathan and produced by Ranga Bee Productions for ITV1, the show features parents and their adult children facing off in a quiz where parents select the questions their children must answer to win a unique prize.

Another ITV title, Shark! Celebrity Infested Waters, produced by Plimsoll Productions, took home the award for Best Reality Format. Both series are distributed by ITV Studios.

Presenter Olivia Attwood was also recognized, winning Best Host of a TV Format for Bad Boyfriends, produced by Optomen and distributed by All3Media International.

A notable highlight was the continued success of The Traitors (U.S.), produced by Studio Lambert for Peacock, which won Best Returning Format. Following its recent Emmy win, this marks a rare double triumph for the franchise — the UK version, aired by the BBC, received the same award last year.

The growing influence of Belgian and Norwegian creativity was also evident. Belgium’s Ultimate Celebrity Car Park Showdown, produced by Woestijnvis for Play4 and distributed by Primitives, won Best Comedy Format, while Norway’s The Box, produced by Seefood TV and distributed by Seefood Distribution for TV2, earned Best Competition Reality Format.

Banijay Entertainment secured two awards:

Best Factual Entertainment Format for Atypical Critics, produced for AMI-Télé in French-speaking Canada.

Best Digital-First Format for Mission Unknown: Atlantic, produced for Prime Video and YouTube in Germany.

Meanwhile, Channel 4 received the Best Brand-Driven Format award for The Secret Life of Five Year Olds.

Finally, as previously announced, the International Formats Business Gold Award was presented to Phil Gurin, President and CEO of The Gurin Company and TGC Global Entertainment, and outgoing Chair of FRAPA.

With over 3,000 hours of television produced across 185 countries, Gurin has built a remarkable career as a creator, producer, and distributor of entertainment formats worldwide. He is also recognized as a tireless advocate for format rights protection, having served 16 years on FRAPA’s board, including 10 as its President.