Studio Lambert, owned by All3Media, snagged prizes for Squid Game: The Challenge and The Traitors at MIPCOM‘s International Format Awards in Cannes on Sunday night.
Squid Game: The Challenge was completely inspired by the smash hit South Korean series on Netflix, adopting the same game for a reality show produced by Studio Lambert and The Garden. The program won best competition reality format at the ceremony on France’s south coast. The same company also took home the award for best returning format prize for its U.K. version of The Traitors.
Elsewhere, Fremantle was awarded best comedy format for the Portuguese TVI show Freeze, and Banijay‘s Upside Down, produced by Endemol Shine Nederland for Videoland, won the best-studio based format prize.
The U.K.’s Screendog Productions won in the factual entertainment category for drama-factual format The Jury: Murder Trial, which aired on Channel 4 and was distributed by Blue Ant Studios. Channel 4‘s E4 also won in the best reality format category with Underdog: Josh Must Win, produced by STV Studios’ Primal Media.
Banijay Rights CEO Cathy Payne picked up this year’s Gold Award in recognition of her decades of service and contribution to the distribution business. “I am so honored to receive this, but it’s really a team effort that includes the sales teams at Banijay Rights and the creative teams at Banijay Entertainment, in particular Lucas Green and James Townley, for creating formats that are able to travel the world,” Payne said.
She added: “As well as being only the fifth woman and third Australian to receive the Gold Award, I was told I’m the first from the distribution side of the business. However, I always see distribution as a creative endeavour so I’m happy to see the growing role of distribution in the formats business acknowledged. … The past 18 months have been a challenge for everyone, after the streamer recalibration, economic woes and the impact of all the new digital platforms. Endurance would be an appropriate term.”
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