THESE WERE THE 5 MOST TALKED-ABOUT TV PROGRAMMES OF 2023

In Wie zoekt die wint (Search and Win), Jens Dendoncker and his team hide a thousand 100-euro notes in a house, before giving its residents half an hour to find the cash – 100,000 euros in total. Let the ransacking begin! “The creative collective Send in the Clowns came up with the idea. The pitch was very simple,” says Mathieu De Rijcke. “But that’s precisely what convinced us to put it into production at PIT, VTM’s in-house production company. Jens’ naughty jokes keep the grown-ups entertained, while the kids are totally absorbed by the game. Top-notch family entertainment, just the way we like it at VTM.”

In terms of hiding places, not much is off-limits to the production team. “In one of the houses, we installed a fake toilet bowl. To get to the money, the residents had to do some demolition work. The craziest hiding spot? A tonne of sand dumped into the living room by a conveyor belt. It was a bit of a clean-up for the residents, but they also got a chunk of money in exchange. The programme’s success is confirmed by the three awards it has won, including Best Comedy Format at Cannes. But I’m even more excited about selling the show in Spain, Portugal, Germany and Wallonia. The programme is a hit that’s being imitated everywhere, from street parties to scouting events. The second season is already in the works.”

With a 33 percent market share and more than a million views on social media,
La Meilleure Friterie (The Best Chip Shop) captured the hearts of French-speaking RTL TVI viewers. “Chips are like a religion in our country,” says Bjorn Verhelpen. “But we’d never had a TV search for the most passionate chip shop owner before. More than 2,000 people nominated their favourite chip shop in Wallonia. After a long casting process, we narrowed these down to a shortlist of two candidates per province. A professional jury then decided which contestants would be in the finale, assisted by chip-lovers who travelled through Wallonia by bus. That element was one of the keys to the programme’s success, so we’ll be focusing even more on it in season two.

We filmed the show as it was being broadcast, hoping it would catch on. Luckily, we managed to attract viewers from the very first episode, which is unique for the Thursday evening slot. Week by week, the programme got better, and it started to take on a life of its own off-screen. Fans drove from Arlon to Brussels to visit the contestants themselves. You’d see them breaking chips to check how creamy they were on the inside. The icing on the cake was the big live finale, which had the energy of a World Cup football match. Unforgettable.”

The game show Bestemming X (Destination X), which sent 10 contestants on a road trip to an unknown location, kept an average of 731,000 viewers glued to their screens. “It’s a challenging time for TV,” Leen Lombaert explains. “So it’s very risky to develop ambitious adventure programmes. They’re expensive, and there’s no guarantee of success. The production company, Geronimo, deserves all the credit for putting together a fantastic show. But it’s not like champagne is gushing down the stairs here. It’s in our DNA to be modest about our successes and we are quick to set our sights on the future. In all honesty, we had hoped for slightly higher numbers. But a good programme is about more than that – Bestemming X made a splash. People talked about it and played along in the app, and it did well with young men, a group of viewers that’s not always easy to reach for VTM. The fact that people kept watching means they enjoyed it, so we did a lot of tinkering to optimise viewer retention.

We want to make the second season even more compelling by enhancing the emotional experience.” Bestemming X has won several awards, including the Golden Rose, and thanks to Gepke Nederlof and her team it was sold to five countries before the finale had even aired. “I’m incredibly proud that our boldness is being recognised and acclaimed internationally,” says Lombaert. “While other channels are going for safe bets, VTM has the courage to keep innovating. We’re putting Flanders on the map.” She laughs: “Actually, a celebration might be in order.”

In Burger House, eight young celebrities set up and ran their own hamburger restaurant – while raising 10,000 euros for charity! “I was confident about the content. The production company, Wunderbar, knows how to make a strong shortie,” says Ine Vanden Eede. “But I did have some sleepless nights about the practical aspects. Starting a restaurant with no relevant experience isn’t easy! Of course, the candidates were surrounded by a professional production team watching from behind the camera. But we weren’t just making a TV programme – we were opening a real restaurant.

​​​​​​​Everything had to be done by the book. The coaches, Kamal and Loïc, were absolutely invaluable, but the candidates had to do the actual work. Buying ingredients, running the kitchen, working two services every day... Hats off to them. We released one episode a day on VTM GO, but the live experience was the biggest draw, without a doubt. People could eat at the restaurant. Within two hours, it was fully booked. The audience could also follow what was happening behind the scenes on VTM GO and the candidates’ social media channels. We produced a huge amount of content. Burger House racked up 650,000 views, making it one of our most successful exclusive shorties ever. And we actually pulled it off: flipping burgers for eight days, we managed to turn a profit and serve up eight juicy episodes.”

If you’re looking for great Flemish series, Streamz is the place to go. “Besides collaborations with TV channels, we also have our own Streamz Originals. On 1 December, we launched Alter Ego: a high-end mystery thriller with a subtle sci-fi twist that asks the question: what if Death was one of us?

We commissioned the series back when Streamz launched in 2020, but there were a few production hiccups along the way: the pandemic, trying to sort out the financing... Fortunately, the long wait was rewarded. Our subscribers had a great show to binge-watch this winter. Half of the people who watched every episode finished the series in six days. In Flanders, Alter Ego will be available exclusively on Streamz for at least another year and a half. In the Netherlands, it has been sold to Videoland.

The show fits perfectly with our ambition to release a strong fiction series every month, which requires a good mix of household names and new talent. In Alter Ego, Ward Kerremans stars alongside other big-name actors like Wouter Hendrickx and Karlijn Sileghem, but we also introduced some new faces. Streamz aims to showcase emerging talent, and we’ve absolutely succeeded in doing that with Alter Ego.”