EXCLUSIVE: Home to Big Brother, The Voice and The Traitors, the Netherlands has always been an entertainment formats powerhouse. Banijay Entertainment is now banking on a pair of shows from country adding to the lineage, as the global production giant gears up for its London TV Screenings showcase today.
Adventure-reality series The Bicycle Race and competition format Last One Standing will both be unveiled today to buyers, with Banijay Benelux CEO Sandra Hilster telling Deadline that the Netherlands “is right at the forefront” of refreshed buzz in the Western European formats market.
“Dutch producers have long been known for their inventive spirit, and ability to create globally disruptive formats with scalable potential from day one,” she said.
“Over the past year, we’ve had an incredible run of new, original commissions like Let’s Play Ball and Football Island, and now with Last One Standing and The Bicycle Race, the creative ambition from our region is clearer than ever,” she added. “We benefit from strong broadcaster partnerships – players who are willing to take creative risks and place a huge amount of trust in our labels to deliver distinctive, engaging content.”
The Bicycle Race comes from Banijay Benelux-owned EndemolShine Nederland and Talpa Studios, and is for the latter’s Talpa stablemate, SBS6. The same producers were behind Banijay format Let’s Play Ball.
The eight-episode series is inspired by the global bike-packing trend and sees six celebrities partner up with a partner, friend or family member to compete in an epic adventure on wheels.
They ride across the unfamiliar terrain of India, and are forced along the way to make tactical decisions to navigate through, earn money in high-stakes challenges and rely on the generosity and insight of local communities. Each stage lasts three days, with one couple leaving at the end. After a 12-day journey, one couple will be crowned winners.
“We are incredibly proud of our biking culture here in the Netherlands, but cycling across India takes the tradition to an all-new level,” said Rob van der Vleugel, Managing Director, EndemolShine Nederland. It pushes the teams out of their comfort zones and into the heart of local communities. It’s a feel-good and authentic reality adventure competition with a unique outstanding visual element, the bicycle.”
James Townley, Banijay’s Chief Content Officer, Development, added that the format was an “uplifting, visually striking and character‑driven adventure reality format combines jeopardy, scale, emotion, culture and strategy in a distinctive way.”
Last One Standing, meanwhile, is from The Traitors co-producer RTL Creative Unit and Banijay’s SimpelZodiak, originally made for RTL’s Dutch streaming service, Videoland. It got backing from Banijay’s Genre Accelerator Fund, the super-indie’s global development fund for non-scripted ideas.
“The fund allowed SimpelZodiak and RTL’s Creative Unit the space to explore an AI tech integration and develop a premium challenge engine to push the concept into new creative territory,” said Banijay Benelux’s Hilster. “The result is a show with a distinctive identity and international potential from the beginning.”
Set against a “desert-like backdrop,” Last One Standing sees a group of celebrities live together in a stripped-back camp and take on elite-level trials engineered by top athletes. At the same time, an AI-powered fit room reveals their physical condition in real time. There are no alliances or no voting mechanism, but anyone losing or quitting is immediately out of the game, until there is only one contender remaining.
“We set out to build a premium challenge engine that’s both demanding and purposeful, showcasing extraordinary physical feats while inspiring viewers,” said Justine Huffmeijer, Managing Director of SimpelZodiak. “From the AI-powered fit room to the precision-designed trials, the series reflects the cultural shift towards health, longevity, and performance, and we believe it’s primed to create a passionate, highly engaged community on and off-screen.”
Townley noted the format sits within Banijay’s recent push into ‘sportainment’ formats such as soccer survival series Football Island, which also hailed from Banijay Benelux, which houses production companies from Belgium and the Netherlands.
In an exclusive interview with Deadline, Banijay Benelux’s Hilster said sportainment had become “a growing force” in the formats landscape.
“Audiences today are increasingly focused on health, resilience and personal growth, and they gravitate towards stories that reflect those values in an aspirational and relatable ways,” she added. “The genre works because it blends physical spectacle with human storytelling.
“Football Island and Last One Standing are great examples. One brings legendary footballers and survival challenges, and the other tests celebrities competing to determine the fittest. Both shows are fundamentally about transformation, pushing boundaries, discovering strengths and experiencing personal breakthroughs in epic environments.”
Hilster, a veteran exec in the Netherlands broadcasting and production sector, joined Banijay Benelux in October last year after a five-year run at pubcaster KRO-NCRV. She told us about her priorities after nearly six months in post.
“My priority is to ensure Dutch and Belgian creativity continues to hold real influence on the global stage,” she said. “Banijay Benelux already has an impressive track record in developing formats that cut through both locally and internationally, and my ambition is to support the teams so we can elevate that even further.
“That means doubling down on original IP, giving our labels the freedom and backing to take creative risks, and championing ideas that other markets might consider too ambitious or too unconventional. It also means fostering deeper collaboration across the internal labels and leveraging the full power of Banijay Entertainment’s scale and international network.”
With Banijay and The Traitors All3Media locked in talks over a potential merger, the London TV Screenings has abuzz with producers, creatives and distribution execs considering the implications of such a dramatic market change.
The deal would create a massive force in formats, with Banijay shows such as Big Brother, Deal or No Deal, MasterChef, Survivor, Fear Factor and Hunted sitting alongside All3 titles such as The Traitors, Squid Game: The Challenge, Race Across the World and Gogglebox. Both Banijay and All3 are among the founders of the London TV Screenings.
We asked Hilster for her views, but she declined to comment further than to say: “Banijay Group has confirmed discussions are underway.”
Back on the formats front, Hilster said: “These recent commissions tap into multiple trends which are reflected globally. We’re seeing fresh approaches on the adventure-reality genre, the continued appetite for humour, the rise of digital-first thinking and creator collaborations, and, of course, the booming interest and investment in sportainment and sports-adjacent programming.”
The London TV Screenings are running throughout this week, ending on Friday afternoon. The weather has been unseasonably hot for the UK’s capital in February, and Banijay will be hoping the optimism that creates converts into deals for its latest formats.
English (US) ·