Networks & Streamers Want To Film More Reality Shows In The U.S.

Rob Lowe, host of Fox game show The Floor, made a lot of noise last year when he detailed how it was cheaper to bring 100 Americans to Ireland than to walk across the lot at Fox and shoot it in Los Angeles.

The Floor, which is shot just outside of Dublin, is one of an increasing number of unscripted shows that are being produced outside of the United States.

But the execs that make these decisions would ultimately like to make more of them inside the U.S., but sometimes there are good reasons to stay abroad.

“We actually produce a lot in the States,” Allison Wallach, Head of Unscripted Programming at Fox Entertainment Studios said during an appearance at the Deadline Reality TV Summit.

She pointed to series such as Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares and Hell’s Kitchen as well as its recent Whitney Cummings-hosted dating show Marriage Market and The Masked Singer, which shot its most recent season on the Fox lot.

“It really depends on what the show is and what it needs. For the studio-based shows, we’ve had a lot of success in Ireland because we found a great producing partner there in Bigger Stage, who know how to execute at the kind of the quality that you know, certainly the network was looking for. With the tax credit there, with the budgets coming down, it just makes sense to do a lot of the studio-based shows over there,” she added. “We are absolutely leaning into filming here, if we can.”

Jay Pharoah, host of Fox game show The Quiz with Balls, revealed that while the first season was shot in Australia, the last two seasons have been filmed in Belgium. “Trump got into office and there was a lot of different shifts with shooting. My understanding is that it’s easier and cheaper to shoot out of America now, which is ridiculous, but that’s how it is,” he said.

Pharoah joked that the food was “trash” in Belgium. “I’m not even going to sugarcoat it,” he added.

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There are obviously some shows that are shot abroad for creative reasons such as Peacock’s Love Island USA, and others like Beast Games are shot in both the U.S. and Middle East.

“It also adds to the production value, right? You have beautiful beaches and roaring hills, and you know, it’s part of the creative,” said Amazon’s Head of Nonfiction Series Jenn Levy.

Netflix’s VP Unscripted Jeff Gaspin revealed that the streamer shot The Golden Ticket in Australia because Eureka, which is behind the show, is based there. Netflix is shooting Monopoly, from Studio Lambert, in the UK for the same reason.

“It’s certainly a lot easier for us to produce in the States than have to travel all over the world. We just shot Star Search here. We’re trying, but we tend to, we tend to go where the production company is,” Gaspin said.