Show of the Week: The Legend

The Legend, billed as a musical game of blackjack, marks the first format produced in-house for the Turkish distributor.

The format is structured as a singing competition in which contestants are competing with themselves. Each episode features eight singers who are given the chance to challenge themselves to perform again and beat their initial mark with a higher score – all without knowing one another’s scores.

If the second song’s score is lower than the singer’s first, that counts as the final score, but if the second score is higher, the contestant wins one more chance to sing and perform a new song. However, it’s only the final performance score that counts. Ultimately, the two top acts each week get to stay in the game and continue to fight for the title of ‘The Legend’.

Global Agency founder and CEO Izzet Pinto created the format in response to a glut of talent and singing shows on the market. The exec tells TBI that he was keen to add a game show element to singing and eventually “came up with a concept where singers are playing blackjack for music.”

“Singers have to be very careful around taking that risk of whether to sing again or not. It’s quite similar to blackjack where people don’t know one another’s score, and while they are trying to boost their own scores, they can make a mistake and decrease it.”

Global Agency has secured option deals for The Legend in the Middle East and Nigeria, as well as Spain and India. The distributor is next targeting Europe, where Pinto reckons the show will cost around €300,000-€400,000 ($330,000-$450,000) per episode to produce.

The exec says the format will also have widespread appeal due to a “guessing game” element, which finds the audience predicting a singer’s next moves around whether they will try to increase their score or not. The game also comes with a play-along app providing a level of interactivity of audiences.

Global Agency will be shopping the format at next week’s MIPTV market in Cannes.

Distributor: Global Agency
Producer: Global Agency
Logline: Singing meets blackjack in this talent show format where contestants compete against themselves