Markets

The final day of MIPCOM Cannes 2026 featured Virginia Mouseler, CEO and co-founder of The WIT, presenting Best of Fresh TV, a 30-minute roundup of the latest global entertainment and scripted trends.

The session highlighted a challenging market, with new internationally adapted formats declining by 62% since their 2013–2014 peak. Despite the slowdown, established franchises continue to dominate, while new entertainment concepts and emerging scripted trends offer fresh opportunities.

New Entertainment Ideas: Cooking, Dating and High-Stakes Games
Mouseler also introduced a selection of new concepts demonstrating that creativity remains alive despite the market slowdown. Among the highlights was Fremantle's Stacks of Cash, a high-stakes physical quiz format that premiered in Portugal and has already attracted international interest, including options in Australia and the United States. The show combines trivia questions, risk-taking and spectacular physical challenges, with contestants competing to protect their potential winnings.
From Denmark came a celebrity bluffing quiz concept in which participants must identify who is pretending to know the correct answer, while another Danish production brought together 100 chefs, ranging from street-food specialists to fine-dining professionals, in an ambitious culinary competition distinguished by its cinematic visual approach.
Dating formats also featured prominently. The Dutch format Love Under Construction combines romance with home renovation, pairing single homeowners with potential partners as they work together on DIY projects. Meanwhile, a Danish dating experiment allows shy singles to adopt alternative identities to overcome their inhibitions and find love.
A Belgian medical factual format, The Surgery, offered a different approach to factual entertainment. Celebrities who have undergone major operations watch the same procedure being performed on another patient, gaining a deeper understanding of their own medical experiences through live explanations from surgeons.

Scripted Content: Comedy, Medical Drama and Microseries
Turning to fiction, Mouseler identified a growing appetite for comedy, medical dramas and shorter storytelling formats.
One of the examples was the Norwegian microseries 21 Days, structured around 21 two-minute episodes and following a character confronted with a limited time left to live.
The presentation also highlighted the continuing potential of scripted adaptations, including ITV's Patience, the British adaptation of the French crime drama Astrid et Raphaëlle.
However, the scripted format business remains relatively stagnant, with adaptations accounting for approximately 5% of the market, according to the figures presented. At the same time, broadcasters and streaming platforms are increasingly drawing inspiration from existing intellectual property, particularly books and films.
Vertical dramas and microseries were another important topic, reflecting the rapid expansion of short-form scripted storytelling beyond Asia and into markets such as the United States.

A Market Looking for Its Next Creative Direction
The overall message of Best of Fresh TV was clear: while the international format industry is producing fewer travelling originals, the search for new concepts continues across entertainment, factual and fiction.
The success of established franchises, the increasing value of recognised IP and the experimentation with new production styles suggest an industry undergoing a profound transformation rather than simply running out of ideas.
For broadcasters and distributors, the challenge is increasingly to identify concepts capable of combining originality with a clear commercial proposition.

As MIPCOM Cannes 2026 draws to a close, The WIT's final presentation leaves the industry with a central question: where will the next generation of international hits come from, and who will be willing to take the risk of creating them?