Got Talent returns to Greece

The Greek version of global hit format Got Talent is making a comeback on a new broadcaster after five years off air in the country.

Commercial network Skai has picked up the format from FremantleMedia and will start airing Greece’s Got Talent (Ellada Eheis Talento) in early October.

The show disappeared from Greek screens five years ago following the season four finale on Skai rival ANT1.

Skai programme manager Alkistis Maragkoudaki revealed the Got Talent premiere details on the channel’s morning news show after the season finale of Survivor.

Production of Greece’s Got Talent will be handled by Acyun Media Hellas, a branch of Turkish producer and distributor Acyun Media. The firm previously worked on local versions of Survivor and The Voice for Skai.

Maragkoudaki also revealed that discussions are underway with scriptwriter and actor Giorgos Kapoutzidis, who hosts The Voice, to bring him back into drama production.

If such plans came to fruition, this would be Kapoutzidis’s first scripted series for SKAI, which he joined after many years at rival Mega.

His comedy dramas (Savvatogennimenes, Sto Para Pente), infused with his distinctive sense of humour, were among the most commercially successful Greek TV content for more than a decade. The second season of his last series, Ethniki Ellados, in 2015 was indefinitely postponed due to Mega’s financial issues, and he has only taken up presenter roles since.

Skai, traditionally a news-focused channel with a 30-plus upper-middle-class core audience, moved into entertainment in 2015/16 with shows such as The Voice, The X Factor and its new take on the Survivor franchise. It also tried Greek fiction series for the very first time, with daily romantic/crime drama Prodosies.

Last autumn, amid the shift in content orientation, Skai announced the creation of a sister channel that would carry the brand’s news and current affairs shows, but this has yet to launch.