NBCUniversal, BBC Execs Talk ‘The Traitors’ Follow-Up, ‘Destination X’: ‘We Are Entering a Golden Age of Unscripted’

CANNES —  “Where Are You?” a screen asked behind speakers at a MipTV panel for “Destination X,” one of the most-awaited new formats in the world. 

Some audience members at the panel, may have been asking the same thing. 

Co-commissioned by the BBC and NBCUniversal as part of their international formats pact, “Destination X” is designed as their weekly water cooler replacement for “The Traitors,” whose 11 territory launches in 2023 were the most of any format in the world, according to “Tracking the Giants,” a report by analysts K7. Presented Saturday morning at MipTV “Tracking the Giants” branded “The Traitors” Format of the Year.

So its follow-up has been greeted with huge anticipation, an industry audience packing out the boutique auditorium Palais Stage at Cannes Palais des Festivals during MipFormats to attend a panel, ‘Destination X’ Case Study – Building a Global Format With NBCUniversal and BBC.

What they didn’t get, however – and what many were surely looking for – were visuals of the new show, any instance of its tone, pace, style or specific manifestations of scale. 

Featuring Ed Havard, NBCUniversal SVP non-scripted and Syeda Irtizaali, BBC editor of unscripted, what the panel did deliver, however, was a sense of the excitement of the business model behind the new format. 

An event reality adventure competition, “Destination X” sees around 10-12 contestants – the number doesn’t seem as yet to be sure –  driven around different international destinations on a bus with blacked-out windows. They play a series of challenges and are fed endless red-herrings and a few clues to guess their location. The contestant who marks an “X” on the map furthest from the real location is eliminated from the show. 

“It is really, really compelling, really fun to watch and a very different approach to travel adventure,” Irtizaali said at the panel.

“It ticks every box, reality, travelogue, play along, a guessing game and we hadn’t really seen anything like that,” Havard added.

“Destination X” does confirm, however – and in line with “The Traitors”– a model for co-operation in a world where money is tight but audiences crave big Saturday-night-style event shows.

NBCU and BBC teamed to buy U.S and U.K. adaptation rights to the original show, which come from Belgian producer Geronimo and distributor Be-Entertainment. Though NBCU and BBC will develop their own versions, both are made by the same U.K. production company, Twofour (Apple TV+’s “The Reluctant Traveller”), the U.S. version having just been picked up to series by NBCU.  

Twofour won a tender for what Havard described as “one of the largest unscripted commissions globally this year” featuring “one of the most highly subscribed tender processes, ever, ever undertaken in the U.K.” “It’s also a massively ambitious show,” he added, “the tender run by two massive broadcasters coming together to find a single partner. That has never, ever happened before.”

Both formats’ production by the same company offers of course huge economies of scale and creative synergies sparking between Twofour, the BBC and NBCU.

Scale in itself does not guarantee success. “The Traitors’” human heart is in part how it offered a very contemporary question of the degree to which people are prepared to betray others for their own success.

What are the large Zeitgeist-infused questions coursing through “Destination X” remains to be seen.

But the partners look to be on the case. Some of their questions about “Destination X” are the same that the BBC asks of any format, Irtizaali noted: “Will the narrative arc be really compelling and have enough twists and turns and surprises and delights and rug-pulls that that will keep audiences interested and excited, but prove authentic and doesn’t feel like the hand of the producer is too involved?”

Also, “Have you created a world that audiences can get really immersed in? And what are the emotional arcs of the characters? These are drama tropes. It’s about very high production values, very high standards of storylines and narrative arcs but with an authentic cast and authentic reactions. I keep calling this ‘prestige reality’ in the hope that it catches on.”

“Destination X” will learn lessons from “Traitors,” Irtizaali  and Havard reflected. 

“The thing we probably learnt the most is when we think about things at a very early stage together, at the development stage, it really, really, really pays dividends,” said Irtizaali.

“The ability for us to come together and supersize a format that’s generated in a European market is something we really learnt from ‘The Traitors’ and will be applying to this,” Havard agreed.

Scripted co-production has flowered in the last decade, though high-end U.S.-U.K. examples have dropped off in number in the last few years. 

“In unscripted, we are learning very quickly that partnerships just unlock so much ambition and potential,” Irtizaali argued.

“The future of big unscripted shows of scale is going to come from some sort of international partnership,” Havard concurred. 

“We’re entering a golden age of unscripted. Shows which comes with huge ambition, huge distinction and huge scale – those are only possible through partnerships,” Irtizaali concluded.