madelyn (00:05)
Hello and welcome to the Unscripted Files. This is our Monday mini sode full of unscripted industry news with Emily Wilson. It is July twentieth. Welcome, Emily.

Emily Wilson (00:14)
Thank you for having me.

madelyn (00:16)
Absolutely. It's summertime, but things still are not slowing down at all. let's start with a high note. We had some Emmy nominations come in and a lot of our favorite unscripted shows are in the list and have handfuls and handfuls of nominations. What are what are some some things that stuck out to you?

Emily Wilson (00:36)
mean we were just talking about it. I'm amazed at just how many nominations so many of these shows have, which is brilliant for their teams. everything from Saturday Night Live, which has eleven, The Traders, which has six, Amazing Race is still up there with five, Dancing with the Stars, Love on the Spectrum, Survivor, such a massive range of unscripted shows on this list.

madelyn (00:58)
yeah, Ru RuPaul's Drag Race has nine. I mean, it's it's really cool to see and it's really exciting for these teams. Also, like I guess it's falling under life, but the Apple music halftime show with Bad Bunny received nine nominations. So, you know, that and the late show with Stephen Colbert, which I love to see with nine nominations. So, certainly exciting, especially for some of these bigger shows like Traders and and Dancing with the Stars that are just pulling crazy numbers.

And really causing a cultural stir and conversation. A major merger across the pond is happening and just got finalized. Tell me what's going on with Bana Jay and all three. We talked about this, I think, last episode, maybe the episode before, but it's now complete. $8 billion. We say that number way too much on this show. Talk to me.

Emily Wilson (01:46)
Yeah, eight billion is quite a number, as you've said. So it's Banner Jay Entertainment and All Three Media. the deal was first announced in March, but now it is finally confirmed. Between them, Banner Jay has a hundred and thirty production companies and all three media has around forty. So the combined business will have two hundred and sixty five thousand hours of content.

And we're going to see formats such as The Traiters and Survivor under the same roof.

madelyn (02:15)
I mean, just an absolute giant here. This is wild. How do you think this will I mean is this is this akin to a Paramount Warner Brothers merger like over in your world? Is it is it really shaking up the UK industry and landscape for producers and for development altogether?

Emily Wilson (02:37)
I feel like it is. I think it will have a massive impact on production companies, all three media are massive in distribution. and internationally as well. I mean, Bana Jay has entities operating all over the world. so it will be interesting to see what happens.

madelyn (02:53)
Yes, and I will count on you to keep us updated on that. I we talk about Netflix. we can't not talk about Netflix every time we're here, and apparently we can't not talk about games every time we're meeting a very popular board game. You know what's funny? We're just talking about all these major mergers. We're talking right, we're talking about all these major mergers, and

How much of a huge chunk of the industry they are going to own. and now we're gonna talk about a board game that was created for all of us to learn that these things are actually bad, that having too much power and control is actually not okay. Talk to me about the status of Monopoly at Netflix.

Emily Wilson (03:30)
Mm.

I mean it's confirmed twenty twenty seven Studio Lambert who produced everything from the traitors to Squid Game the Challenge and a two million dollar prize for the winner.

madelyn (03:47)
That's a big prize number nowadays. I mean, even Love Island is a hundred K and they're getting up to a billion viewers. Survivor what is Survivor? Is Survivor a million? I don't know. But it's I I never see a two million dollar prize except, you know, in numbers like that, except on Beast Games. They have really dwindled, I would say, since the height of like the competition show. But

Emily Wilson (03:59)
I'm not even sure.

In the UK

you're pushed to get a hundred, sometimes fifty thousand. so yeah, two million dollars and only twelve players competing. It's not like Squid Game where you've got hundreds of players competing.

madelyn (04:16)
Exactly.

Right, exactly. What I find interesting about this, and we know that there was a bake off for this particular piece of IP. Over 70 production companies were involved in putting their creative in front of Hasbro, in front of Netflix, to to see who who was gonna win out. And ultimately, it looks like the contestants, the twelve contestants, will be immersed in a life-size monopoly town square where they'll have the opportunity to earn money, buy properties, negotiate deals, and hopefully stay out of jail. this is

Interesting. I'm very curious. Like, did they take over a real town and totally make it over? Is this in studio? I'm really curious about this one. but ultimately it's really fun. And it, you're right, it has gotten it's pass go, and now you can actually audition to be one of the 12 lucky players. So it'll be really fun to see what types of personalities make their way onto this big stage. And you're right, it's a very small number of initial contestants, so your odds of getting the two million aren't too bad.

Emily Wilson (05:23)
For sure. Excited to see this one play out.

madelyn (05:26)
Yes. another move by Netflix.

We've been talking about them with podcasts, which I think a report recently came out that they're not performing as well as they hoped. but they just inked a video deal with some huge publishers like the Hollywood Reporter, Penskey Media, Conan Ast Hearst, which includes all of those, you know, YouTube videos that we love to watch, right? The Vanity Fairy's Lie Detector with the with the celebrities, architectural digest walking tour, Harper's Bazaar Burning Questions,

things from BuzzFeed, Celebrity 30 questions. So they are just continuing to eat up content as we know it.

Emily Wilson (06:02)
Yeah, I don't think it's surprising. I think a lot of people speak about watching Netflix on their TVs and watching YouTube on their T Vs. So these are becoming more television native formats that people are watching. And yeah, I think it's a smart move. Also with their vertical integration into the Netflix app for Discovery, you're gonna be seeing, I guess, what other people would be watching on YouTube shorts. So I'll be interested to see whether this is just

an additional distribution platform for these formats or whether they'll be off YouTube completely.

madelyn (06:35)
Which is interesting because everyone is moving to YouTube as we know, and the the word I feel like the industry word of the year is creator. That's all we keep hearing. I've been seeing articles about Netflix inking deals with various creators, whether they're, you know, culinary or otherwise. So yeah, it it's so funny because I feel like the unscripted industry as a whole is turning their sites to YouTube, turning their sites to creators, and in this roundabout way, Netflix is acquiring said shows. So

So again, the Venn diagram is getting it's just more and more of a circle.

Emily Wilson (07:10)
guess if YouTube is offering creators that opportunity to monetize Netflix have to lure them away and offer them something to bring them over to their platform.

madelyn (07:18)
Exactly. and then another kind of like fun we we've been talking about trends and unscripted and what we're seeing, and certainly the 90s nostalgia is a big one that we have

we've got a new 90s home renovation series from HDTV with Jaleel White as the host. And Emily, I don't know if you know this, but Jaleel White played Steve Urkel of Family Matters and was just one of those characters that you it is just a part of your childhood, just a major figure in every 90s kid's life. And so this is kind of a perfect casting,

And we also have a myriad of other 90s characters like Brian Austin Green, Beverly Mitchell from Seventh Heaven, Jodie Sweden from Full House, Melissa Joan Hart, Matthew Lawrence, Keisha Knight Pullium, and Joey Lawrence. This is going to be a six-episode season premiering later in August. And these celebs are going to be tasked with revamping homes that are stuck in the 90s.

Emily Wilson (08:13)
And it's nice to see them in something that's not just a game show, but to see them part of a format like this. And also an interesting choice by H Two T V to launch a companion YouTube series alongside the premiere.

madelyn (08:26)
I was just reading this. I really love this, how they're creating this sort of shoulder content to go along with it. So yeah, they're launching HGTV HouseCall 90s edition, which is a companion series that'll take viewers inside the homes of 90s celebrities, revealing their design style, personal stories, and everyday spaces.

Okay, so when you play Monopoly,

What was what was your game piece you always chose?

Emily Wilson (08:48)
It's been so long.

madelyn (08:50)
Let's see. the OG ones are like the thimble, the iron, the Scotty Dog, the streetcar, the top hat, the shoe.

Emily Wilson (09:00)
My God.

madelyn (09:00)
I think I always wanted to be the Scotty dog because I thought it was so cute. And I definitely never wanted to be I mean I always went for like the high like the park place, like the high dollar ones. I always wanted to get those. They were blue in our game.

Emily Wilson (09:06)
Well, there's certain places you would buy.

madelyn (09:18)
But my family would play, I mean, you can't ever finish in like a day. We would we would play it for like three nights and then it never still never felt like it was done.

thank you so much, Emily, for joining me. You can, of course, follow Emily Wilson on LinkedIn where every Friday she posts unscripted industry news right to her feed where you can see it, or she can send it straight to your inbox via her Substack at unscripted TV News. Thank you, Emily.

Emily Wilson (09:42)
Thank you.