To celebrate Upfronts season, here are 25 fresh new TV show ideas for 2025
We are in the midst of upfronts season! Where the television networks are presenting their programming slates for 2025, and we are yelling things like, “needs more Dr Chris Brown” or “needs less Dr Chris Brown”.
While they’ve already locked in a lot of their schedules for the next 12 months, these things are always subject to change – after all, didn’t Ten announce The Masked Singer for 2024? – and with this in mind, I present 25 completely free television show ideas for 2025. You’re very welcome.
COIN TOSS CARNAGE
Basically two-up with real money. Put it on at 5pm to go against/replace The Tipping Point and The Chase.
CREEPING TOM
Put a GoPro on a neighbour cat. Edit each day’s footage down to a tight 30 for prime time, but have the entire thing streaming on BVOD and watch Reddit threads flood with variations on “holy shit, Tom just bagged the most colourful bird I’ve ever seen”, while lobby groups raise concerns regarding the addictive nature of the live feed (Don’t approach PETA for sponsorship).
AUSTRALIA’S FUNNIEST HOME VIDEOS
The catch: All footage must be submitted on video tape. Similar to the vinyl revival, it would breathe life into a dormant format, kickstart a retro fad in Gen whatever-comes-after Z, and could be sponsored by Panasonic or Sony. Or – nobody will submit footage, and you will be forced to relax your submission rules and you’ll just be airing TikTok leftovers, which is also good.
LOVE ISLAND: PENSIONER EDITION alternative title: BINGO! LOVE ON THE BOWLING GREENS (BUT NO HARD SOLES, PLEASE)
Obviously, this is 70+ looking for love. You know it would be sad and sweet and cute and profound, but also edgy and cancel-proof, because older people get away with saying all types.
BOGGLEGOX
A bunch of regular Australian families watch Gogglebox.
HALF-HOUR ADVERTORIAL/BLOCKBUSTER FRANCHISE
Transformers might be a billion dollar film franchise these days, but back in the 1980s, it was a terribly written, terribly animated half-hour advert for cast-iron toy robots. With networks struggling to attract advertising, surely a half-hour comedy starring Rhonda from AAMI could be cash and ratings gold? These are proven characters after all. What about those annoying Compare The Market meerkats? Or a children’s cartoon starring the Solomon’s Flooring genie and the Sorbent cockatoo? The possibilities are endless, and there’s also the possibility you’ll get a billion dollar film franchise out of it, too (Rhonda Takes Manhattan?).
AUSTRALIAN SOAP OPERA AVENGERS
Also for those paying attention to the box office of late: people love a good team-up where characters from different comics/films come together in one Avengers-style cinematic mash-up. So, this one’s probably for Seven, but let’s get John Wood and Lisa McCune’s characters from Blue Heelers, Georgie Parker’s All Saints nurse, Alf Stewart and Sally from Home and Away (I guess we can resurrect Bec Cartwright’s career, too), a few from A Country Practice, Always Greener, Packed To The Rafters, maybe even a character from that first season of Neighbours you own, and have an Avengers-style soap opera. I know Lisa McCune’s character died on Blue Heelers (spoiler!), but who says this show needs to be set in the present day?
AUSTRALIAN IDOL: REMATCH
Nollsie vs Guy: the grudge match. Let’s also get Paulini and Ricki-Lee and Millsy and Lisa Mitchell and Casey Donovan and Matt Corby back in the ring for another round of ABBA hits. May the best Idol win.
Pictured: Two guys, riding the lightning.
AUSTRALIAN SKETCH COMEDY SHOW
It’s time to have another crack at this – a format that nobody has landed successfully since the mid 1990s.
DEAL
A derivation of Deal or No Deal. One contestant opens one case. They get whatever’s in it. That’s life. Deal.
THIS DAY IN…
Just run an old hourly news bulletin, in its entirety, from that same date on any given year. Don’t announce which year it will be ahead of time, and don’t lean into the obvious historical news events – choose the year using a lotto ball system.
THE UNTITLED WARWICK CAPPER PROJECT
Just let him do whatever he wants, and the people will watch.
SALE OF THE CENTURY: THE BOARD GAME: THE TV SHOW
Shot to emulate a fly-on-the-wall documentary, contestants sit around a dining-room table and compete in the board game version of popular TV show Sale Of The Century. They are served wine and lobster, and encouraged to trash talk each other.
SALE OF THE CENTURY: THE BOARD GAME: THE TV SHOW: CELEBRITY EDITION
See above, but with ex-MAFS jailbirds, former footy heroes, and John Howard the actor.
PLAY SCHOOL: BREAKING THE ARCHED WINDOW
Two stories:
Despite Sesame Street being a children’s show, The Muppet Show was aimed at adults – Henson performed on the first season of SNL, and the pilot was named Sex and Violence. In the late ’90s, Nintendo copped flak for their new cuddly platform game, Conker’s Bad Fur Day, being too similar to their previous cuddly platform game, Banjo Kazooie – so, at the 11th hour, they turned the main character into a beer-slamming, cigar chomping, potty-mouthed party squirrel.
Can you see where I’m going with this? How about an adults version of Play School where Big Ted swans around sloppy drunk, whinging about how Jemima left him, and how Little Ted no longer visits now he’s a big shot down town. Humpty Dumpty’s already falling-off-walls hammered as it is, so it wouldn’t take too big a stretch here…
UNDER EIGHTS SOCCER
I think I’ve floated this idea in a previous column, but imagine picking a random under eights soccer competition and airing it with the forensic commentary and coverage given to the NRL – the random nature of eight-year-old sporting prowess combined with temper tantrum and swinging sugar levels should make this a ratings smash.
SOMETHING ABOUT MY HOUSE IS WEIRD
Our crack-team of annoyers break-in to someone’s house (note: Must be someone who lives alone) and make numerous, subtle adjustments to furniture and household objects: lounges an inch higher, dinner plates fractionally larger, ceiling painted a slightly different shade of white, every shoe a half-size smaller – you could even move a doorway by 10cms. Watch the madness unfold.
UNDER NINES SOCCER
Okay, I’ll admit – I’m finding it hard to get to 25. Inventing TV shows is hard – no wonder it’s a proper job!
WHAT’S THE FREQUENCY, LEUNIG?
Why hasn’t there been an animated Australian political satire on TV? Michael Leunig has recently retired, so I’m sure he’d be up for a new project.
FRUGAL FLATMATES
We are living in a cost-of-living crisis, so we put ten people in a house, Big Brother style, and they all have to live as frugally as possible. Bills are divided depending on usage (water, electricity) and there’ll need to be some other rules, like no stealing or hunting, and I guess we’d need a doctor on set for Maggi-related scurvy cases. But mix the starvation of Survivor with the petty penny-pinching of shared housing and make mine a Home Brand, please.
SAT’DAY MORN’ ‘ROUND TEN
There’s a pub in Newtown I won’t name, but on a Saturday morning, it is heaving with the over 70s crowd who smash beers and Smiths crisps, and yell at each other due to a heady blend of drunkenness and deafness and are out the door by noon because they’ve been up since 4am, and alive since 1949. Stick a camera crew on that action!
HIGH SCHOOL WHO?-SICAL
A different middle-age-or-older celebrity comes onto the show each week. The format is a fireside chat with the host, the celebrity, and a random person from their high school days, who they have to make convincing small talk with — “you still see anyone from the old… group?” — while trying to recall their first and last names.
BAND IN A BUBBLE
Remember when Regurgitator lived in a big plastic bubble in Federation Square and made an album while Channel [V] aired it live? Let’s bring this format back. The music industry needs it, the inflatable plastic bubble industry needs this. We all need this.
THAT’S BREADTASTIC!!!
Ten loaves of bread – one canny shopper, who must place them in order of price. If they get it exactly right, they win a million dollars – plus three months’ worth of free bread (obviously, there’ll be further conditions on the ‘free bread’).
HOME AND AWAY
Chronicles the lives, loves, happiness and heart-breaks of the residents of Summer Bay, a small coastal town in New South Wales, Australia. Sorry, these ideas are getting silly.
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Some great ideas going on there. I’d tune in for “This Day in…”
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