EXCLUSIVE: Fremantle is the latest company to extend the holiday production hiatus on a number of its shows to protect against the latest surge in Covid-19 numbers.
Daytime gameshows The Price Is Right and Let’s Make A Deal have extended their breaks coming out of the Christmas holidays. Both were originally set to return to production in the first two weeks of January but will now not start back until the end of the month.
Following the initial pandemic lockdown, The Price Is Right returned to filming at the start of October. The CBS show went back to its studio at Television City with a redesigned, Covid-friendly set and all of its usual rounds but without an audience.
Similarly, long-running daytime format Let’s Make A Deal, which is also getting its first primetime specials on CBS, returned to production towards the end of October with a mix of virtual and in-person contestants.
The RTL-owned producer joins the likes of CBS Studios, Warner Bros. TV, Universal TV, Sony Pictures TV, Lionsgate TV and Disney TV Studios’ ABC Signature and 20th Television and Netflix with regards to pausing production.
It comes after the LA County Department of Public Health urged the film and TV industry to consider pausing for a few weeks during the surge in Cornavirus cases across the region.
Earlier this afternoon, the department reported 13,512 new confirmed cases of Covid-19 with 11,000 total deaths as hospitalizations increase to “critical” levels.
Elsewhere, the company’s American Idol is currently not in production, while its other big new entertainment format Game of Talents, for Fox, finished shooting its first season.