Weekly: How a calculated dating gamble paid off

This Valentine’s Day, the highly anticipated Muslim Matchmaker dating show will finally be out in the world. As the creative executive producer who brought it to Hulu and shepherded the project at ABC News Studios, it’s a moment of pride and joy that’s difficult to put into words.

Three years ago, when the creator of the show, Smriti Mundhra (Indian Matchmaking and The Romantics), pitched it to me, I couldn’t help but fall in love with the matchmakers – two millennial women helping Muslim Americans find love and stay true to their faith.

What got me was the kicker sound bite, from matchmaker Yasmin Elhady, in the show’s concept reel.

“I actually did a good thing here. It’s a good thing that will always be. It will outlive me. It’s now shifted an entire generation. That’s amazing. I want to do that. I think I’m good at that.”

Elhady was talking about her work in helping Muslim Americans find love, but I related to it in a different context. I asked myself, “What am I good at?”

I was then a creative executive at a studio and had chosen to focus on creating shows for both historically neglected viewers and everyone else who was curious. Trying to make a show about communities that haven’t been fairly portrayed in media, but in a way that didn’t feed into Western expectations of pathos, poverty, and darkness.

Cracking the code

While those things exist, they often exist because of the way the West has treated the global majority.

What I was interested in was to crack this code by taking the story of an underserved community, conceptualising and executing it well, so the resulting project can become a breakout hit and do justice to the joy, love, and humour that underscore the lives in these communities.

But this required homework, laser sharp intent, and lots of persistence.

I should preface that nothing here is prescriptive. Every decision maker, commissioner, creative executive is equipped with their own experiences, tools, and access to help them determine potential hit shows.

Firstly, I know exactly who I’m making shows for: underdogs, outsiders, minoritised global majority audiences, of which I see myself as a part of, as a Chinese woman who grew up in Muslim majority Malaysia, and raising a multicultural Indian, Chinese, Malaysian, American child in New York.

(If I just count the two ethnicities in my immediate family – Chinese and Indian – that’s already two massive global majority markets, more than two billion of the world’s global population combined).

It is this intent, plus a sense of urgency, which has fuelled both Muslim Matchmaker and the hit disability rom com feature documentary Patrice: The Movie, which premiered at TIFF and was released on Hulu last fall.

The work, or rather early education in seeing the commercial value of these projects, begins with having done work or having established meaningful relationships with communities.

Why should anyone give you their money, or their life stories, if they don’t trust you? And how far will you go to build that trust? Being truly invested in the community you are speaking to is what gives you clarity on what’s thematically important and a deeper understanding on how the issue or story could unfold over time.

This also doesn’t come easy. My biggest and truest guide on what to commission comes from almost two decades working in documentary film. It is a gut feeling – running towards subjects and issues that bring discomfort.

Is there something salient, that’s causing deep rooted anxiety for me, and a significant audience? Who can tell this story in a way that alleviates it?

Only after that comes the part on whether the idea can be laid out and transformed in a commercial format, be it a dating show, a rom com, true crime, procedural, or a thriller.

Can it be fun, highly entertaining and addictive? Can the format, the story, the arc and the participants be strong enough, propulsive enough to engage and cut through all the noise in the media? Can the show help viewers, myself included, navigate the world a little better?

These key questions, coupled with data on subscribers, number of hours watched, repeat watches, and trends helps you stay ahead.

Calculated bets

Data, work and lived experience, plus intuition, makes it easier to make calculated bets. It becomes easier to articulate why a show should or should not be made, using the right comparisons, and making a more accurate guess at cost efficiency and profitability.

The Muslim Matchmaker team - led by executive producers Mundhra, Senain Kheshgi, Maya Gnyp, and Nina Anand Aujla - checked a lot of the boxes. In terms of comparisons, the award-winning A24/Hulu hit drama comedy series Ramy demonstrated a voracious appetite for Muslim American content.

“I first saw the show’s concept reel three years ago, and couldn’t take my eyes off the matchmakers, Elhady and Hoda Abrahim - I was obsessed!”

It’s no secret that audiences across cultures love romcoms and dating shows, as seen with Netflix’s Love Is Blind: Habibi, which was tailored for the Arab world. In terms of binge worthy formats, Mundhra’s Indian Matchmaking and Jewish Matchmaking were already tested and proven – her format could cross over to mainstream audiences globally.

But beyond industry trends, there is one key question: Is it fun? I first saw the show’s concept reel three years ago, and couldn’t take my eyes off the matchmakers, Elhady and Hoda Abrahim - I was obsessed!

And if we look at the media as a whole, especially in the US, there simply isn’t enough entertaining, educational, and informative content celebrating the ordinary and extraordinary lives of Muslim Americans.

Muslim Matchmaker also has the potential to cross over globally, particularly in regions with sizable Muslim populations. If you do the math and pull in all the numbers on this graph alone, it was clear that Muslim Matchmaker needed to be made.

But calculated guesses aside, at the end of the day, it all comes down to viewers. We like to see them as nameless, faceless data points but each of them - with their unique lives and experiences - is a singular mind that weighs out a decision by its own parameters.

“After an inhumanely long day at work, should I spend the next hour watching TV or should I scroll on TikTok?”, “Is this show worth ignoring my deadline for, for just an hour?”, “Is it thrilling?”, “Will it bring me joy?” Every member of the audience determines the life of a show.

Can I pre-empt their questions and help create a show that welcomes them back every time they have the time to spare, and leave them excited? Am I good at creating a show that gives the audience as much delight as it gave me? I sure hope so.

Poh Si Teng is an award-winning producer (Oscar-nominated St. Louis Superman) and former creative executive producer at ABC/Disney, commissioning editor at Al Jazeera English, IDA grants director, and Emmy-nominated journalist at The New York Times. She is lead creative executive producer of Hulu’s disability romcom documentary Patrice: The Movie and dating series Muslim Matchmaker. She is currently developing a true crime series, and recently returned to the field to direct her first feature documentary.