Canada’s W Network buys The Audience

Canadian specialty channel W Network has ordered a local version of Channel 4 format The Audience.

The show is distributed by ITV Studios Global Entertainment, which brokered the Canadian deal.

In the UK the show is produced by indie The Garden, which has a first-look deal with ITV.

In Canada it will be made by Force Four Entertainment, which will make the 6x60mins version for the Corus-owned female-skewing W Network.

ITV has already sold the format to Denmark, where Blu produces the local version, and to France, where ITV is making a version for commercial broadcaster TF1. It has also shopped the show to RTL4 in the Netherlands.

In the show the audience of the title meets someone at a crossroads with a life-changing decision to make and to answer their big dilemma, they open up their life to 50 ordinary people who follow them for a week, and draw on their collective life experience to solve the protagonist’s problem.

Tobi de Graaff, director of Global Television Distribution, ITV Studios Global Entertainment, said: “This latest deal demonstrates that there is growing appetite for the format and we look forward to securing further deals worldwide.”

Vibika Bianchi, vice president, original programming, lifestyle, reality, factual entertainment, Corus Entertainment, said:  “If Come Dine With Me Canada is any indication of the potential success, we will see The Audience become a new network hit as well.”