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Just
when you thought that the era of Jeux Sans Frontières was over, along
came a new series to surprise you. Stedenspel (City
Games) was a television show in which Belgium and Netherlands battled
against each other in a competition that JSF fans might find somewhat familiar.
All the editions were recorded in television Studio 12 (complete with its 3.3
million litre water tank!) at the Eurocam Media
Center in Lint, Belgium and was produced by the Flemish broadcaster EXQI Plus
and the Dutch broadcaster TROS. The programme was hosted by Guy Van Sande
(Belgium) and Yolanthe Cabau van Kasbergen (Netherlands) - pictured above
- and commentary was supplied by Tom Blom. Stedenspel aired in the
Netherlands and in the Flemish-speaking part of Belgium, Flanders.
Each programme in the 2010 Stedenspel series featured
two teams consisting of five men and five women, representing Belgian and
Dutch towns and cities and they played a set of nine standard games which were
repeated from one programme to the next. The titles of these games betrayed an
important element of the competition: 'Sponge Game', 'Penguin Game', 'Water
Climbing Wall' and 'Boat Game'... All games were played in, on, next to, above
and even under water. An enormous 25 by 35 metre swimming pool was the key -
and lots of competitors got very wet in their endeavours to prove their home
towns the best!
All
the games played in this series were standard games, which were identical
in each and every programme. Game numbers were shown in on-screen graphics,
but the opening and final games were unnumbered, so confusingly the second
game of each programme was referred to as Game 1. Despite not being officially
titled, the opening and closing games in each event have been given titles by
JSFnetGB for reference purposes. Additionally, the two heats of the 'Water
Climbing Wall' game were given separate numbers (Game 3 and Game 7), even
though technically they were two halves of a single game.
The revival of interest in Belgium and the Netherlands
coincided with cancellation of the French Domestic Series, Intervilles. It had
been running in its France Télévisions incarnation since 2004 but both the
2008 and 2009 series performed poorly. Despite being freshened up with new
games and other innovations designed to draw audiences back to Intervilles,
the 2009 series had garned a regular audience of fewer than 2.5 million
viewers, with a 12.5% share of all viewers, somewhat lower than the producer
Yves Launoy's target of 14% or better. This was in part attributed to having
been scheduled opposite Esprits Criminels (Criminal Minds), a huge hit
for the TF1 channel.
It is unclear whether or not a putative 2010 series of
Intervilles would have returned to its travelling formula; there are
certainly suggestions that it was hoped to get it back 'on tour'. However,
this is thrown into doubt by the suggestion that Mistral Productions had taken
out a three-year contract with the city of Amnéville to host the production of
Intervilles until 2011. Yves Launoy was reported as being satisfied
with the effectiveness of the new formula and that he hoped France 3 would
continue with the series, for which he planned to fine tune the changes made
for 2009, ironing out imperfections that he had identified. France 3 chose not
to make an instant decision and waited until 3rd December 2009, when Patrice
Duhamel, managing director of France Télévisions, announced during a press
conference that Intervilles would not be returning in the summer of 2010. He
does however specify that the programme is being rested rather than cancelled
outright and that there may well be a place for it on France 3 in the future.
A new game show in a similar vein to Intervilles will take its place in
the July and August schedules on France 3 - Mission Millenium (Mission
Millennium).
Finally, although the Spanish Domestic Series Grand Prix del
Verano had come to an end, FORTA TV repackaged the 2007-2009 series,
adding a new comedic commentary track, and broadcast these repeats in 2010 and
2011 as Grand Prix Express.
by Alan Hayes
with thanks to Ischa Bijl |
