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Ten reveals 2018 slate

Street Smart stars Tahir Bilgic

Australia’s Network Ten has commissioned a local version of popular entertainment format Blind Date as part of its new content and digital strategy for 2018.

Ten will bring a variety of new and returning domestic and international content to the network, with other show announcements including scripted crime comedy series Street Smart, Warner Bros-produced relationship series Bachelor in Paradise and CBS Television Studios’ military drama SEAL Team.

The network is also introducing a special pilot week to highlight its investment in new local production. For the first time on Australian television, several domestically produced pilots, from a number of content genres, will air in one week in mid-2018.

Based on the UK format and hosted by Australian comedian Julia Morris, Blind Date sees a singleton ask questions of three potential suitors to determine which one is right for them. The show is being produced by Australian outfit Playmaker Media for Network Ten.

Street Smart, produced by CJZ with principal investment from Screen Australia in association with Create NSW, follows a gang of would-be criminals who liken themselves to Ocean’s Eleven-style gangsters but, in reality, are far from it.

Ten will also air Screentime’s new comedy entertainment production Hughesy, We Have a Problem; wildlife series Russell Coight’s All Aussie Adventures, produced by Working Dog Productions; and family relationship show How to Stay Married, a Princess Pictures and Pablo Pictures coproduction.

Additionally, new local series Playing for Keeps and fly-on-the-wall docuseries The Secret Life of Four Year Olds, both produced by Banijay-owned Screentime, will also air.

Returning content on Network Ten next year includes the 10th season of MasterChef Australia, as well as Gogglebox Australia, Shark Tank and Neighbours.

From overseas, meanwhile, Ten has added crime thriller Instinct and family comedy 9JKL. Based on a book by bestselling author James Patterson, Instinct follows a former CIA operative who has since built a “normal” life as a professor and writer. It is produced by CBS Television Studios and Timberman-Beverly Productions. CBS, alongside Kapital Entertainment, also produces 9JKL, a multi-camera comedy about a man who lives in an apartment with his parents and his brother’s family as neighbours.

Other foreign productions on Ten will include more from CBS, linked to the impending takeover by the US company, first reported by C21 in August. CBS International president Amando Nunez was in the audience for the upfronts at the Sydney Exhibition Centre earlier today.

The New South Wales Supreme Court will deliver its verdict tomorrow on the application to transfer Ten’s shares to CBS, the final stage of the takeover. CBS has signalled it will leave Ten’s management in place.

Australian prodco execs and distributors expect CBS will give the broadcaster more financial muscle to compete more effectively with the Nine and Seven networks.

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