BBC ships Oz asylum format to US

BBC America has picked up format rights to Australian network SBS’s provocative reality series Go Back to Where You Came From.

The show features six Australians who agree to challenge their preconceptions by retracing typical asylum seekers’ journeys from Australia to Malaysia, Kenya, Jordan and elsewhere. They are deprived of all their possessions and use the same dangerous transport to complete the trips in the 4×60’ series, produced by Cordell Jigsaw Productions.

The series sparked debate in Australia about the asylum issue and a US version will now be produced for BBC America. This is the first format deal for SBS in the US although the Go Back format has previously sold to TV2 in Denmark and Keshet Broadcasting in Israel.

Sony-owned Tuvalu Media, Studio Hamburg DocLights, Snowman Productions and Curious Pictures are producing local versions in the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden and South Africa respectively.