Hot Picks: Naked, Alone And Racing To Get Home

The stakes have been raised for the full series of Naked, Alone And Racing To Get Home.

Participants in last year’s pilot of the Avalon survival format for E4 were stripped of clothes and possessions and left to race across open countryside to an extraction point over several days.

After being handed a six-part series order, due to air next year, executive producer Jamie Isaacs set about devising a harsher challenge, banning competitors from asking for accommodation and food from people they meet along the way.

“It still has a bit of wit about it but we’ve made it more extreme, harder and more clearly a survival challenge,” he says, adding that not all contributors completed the race.

Avalon director of distribution Isobel Hughes identifies the primary targets for Naked, Alone And Racing To Get Home as the Nordics, Germany and Benelux, which tend to be less “conservative” than some southern European countries and have a strong appetite for survival shows. The US is also high on the hitlist.

She believes the show could sit on broadcasters’ main channels, a departure from the youth-skewing E4, and argues that the series’ “gamified” and “varied tone” moves the genre on.

“Shows such as Naked And Afraid can be quite relentless, without many laughs, whereas Naked, Alone And Racing To Get Home has moments of comedy,” she says.

In terms of format sales, the show’s short production cycle and less hardcore survivalist ambitions make it more affordable than formats such as Alone or The Island, which are “very expensive and involve a huge commitment from the broadcasters”.

“This is a competitively priced fact-ent format that is shot in three days and can be commissioned in volume,” Hughes says.

The E4 pilot entertained a consolidated audience of 350,000 (2%) in a Wednesday 9pm slot in

October and attracted an even split between male and female viewers, at odds with E4’s typical female-skewing focus.