Published: Fri 31 May 2019
ITV commissions The Masked Singer
ITV has commissioned Scottish indie, Bandicoot (part of Argonon Group), to produce a new UK version of the Korean and US smash hit series The Masked Singer, which will air as a stripped event on the Network in 2020.
The Masked Singer is the surreal and surprising, singing game show that's taken the planet by storm. Originally gaining global acclaim as the Korean format The King of Mask Singer, the series was a big hit in Asia, and captivated millions around the globe through viral clips on social media.
In the US, The Masked Singer launched to a multiplatform consolidated audience of 17.6 million, making it Fox's most-watched unscripted debut in 11 years, and the most-watched unscripted debut on any network for 7 years.
Now ITV and Bandicoot are bringing this utterly bonkers and brilliantly noisy phenomenon to British viewers, for an eight-part series airing across consecutive nights in 2020.
Part guessing game and part singing show, this spectacular series will see 12 famous faces compete to pull off the best performance, with their identity elaborately and imaginatively concealed, thanks to an expert team of talented costume designers. The stars will be transformed and they will take on a masked identity and become a fantastic character which will disguise them for the whole series.
Forget any thoughts of fancy dress - they'll be full-on, original, movie-standard creations taking inspiration from worlds as varied as manga, superheroes, and wild animals and mythical creatures. Their transformations will be total, even their speaking voices will be disguised in interviews.
It will be up to a superstar panel to lead the viewers at home in their quest to discover who they are. Although the stars aren't judged on their voices, they'll still need to give their best performance - the audience's least favourite will be eliminated, before the panel try to guess their identity and unmask them.
The Masked Singer was commissioned by Kevin Lygo, ITV's Director of Television and Siobhan Greene, ITV's Head of Entertainment Commissioning. Derek McLean and Daniel Nettleton will executive produce alongside Claire Horton.
Siobhan Greene said: Not very often, a show comes along that seems to abandon all the rules.... and this is it. The Masked Singer is original, bold, funny and a proper guessing game, that we hope will have the nation hooked. We all loved it from the moment we saw it and are so excited to be bringing it to a UK audience.
Bandicoot founders, Derek McLean and Daniel Nettleton, added: Bandicoot is delighted to be working with ITV to bring The Masked Singer to the UK. As a young Scottish indie, we are hugely excited to be part of such a successful global format. The Masked Singer combines the entertainment values of the most bonkers singing show imaginable with the guessing game and laughter of the best comedy panel show. With madcap costumes and cunning disguises, we have no doubt the audience will love the outlandish performances and revel in playing the guessing game. Its less of a whodunnit and more of a whosungit!
[end]
About Bandicoot
Bandicoot is a multi-genre Scottish indie, founded by Derek McLean and Daniel Nettleton and is a joint venture with Argonon Group. Bandicoot was formed to advance the pair's passion for wild and twisted entertainment formats - bringing together their collective experience in reality, factual, formats and comedy in one genre-busting label. Producing nearly 30 hours of entertainment in the last year, Bandicoot's original formats include BBC One's strategy gameshow, Chase the Case and car-based gameshow, Test Drive, which returns shortly for its second series on BBC Scotland.
About Argonon Group
Founded in 2011 by CEO James Burstall, Argonon is an independent production group headquartered in London with offices in Manchester, Glasgow, New York and Vancouver. Argonon is led by a board of creatives and entrepreneurs with James Burstall (CEO), Laura Bessell (COO), David Dugan (Chairman, Windfall Films).
The group consists of 12 companies producing multi award-winning programming for a wide range of major broadcasters in the UK, the USA and Canada, and specialises in factual, factual entertainment, entertainment, drama, arts, comedy and children's programming. The group has won Emmys, BAFTAs, RTS Awards and many others - more than 60 in total and over 150 nominations.
Argonon is made up of Leopard Pictures, Leopard USA, Remedy Productions, Windfall Films, BriteSpark Films, Transparent Television, Barefaced TV and Bandicoot. Argonon also has its own successful rights and intellectual property distribution company with a catalogue of more than 2,000 hours of content - Argonon International.
In 2017 and 2016, the London Stock Exchange cited Argonon as one of 1,000 Companies to Inspire Britain. In 2016 Argonon was featured in the Sunday Times HSBC Fast Track 200.
Argonon Group brings together exceptional creative and business talent from around the world and is committed to fostering a true spirit of independence and diversity both on and off-screen. argonon.com
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Published: Fri 31 May 2019
