The American entertainer Steve Harvey on Monday announced that he will be producing and hosting both a Family Feud South Africa and Family Feud Ghana version that will start broadcasting in Africa from early-2020, produced by Rapid Blue.
Steve Harvey is on a Southern Africa tour and last week visited Botswana where he promised to invest in that country's TV industry.
He's now travelled to South Africa and announced at a press conference on Monday in Johannesburg that he will be presenting Family Feud SA and a Family Feud Ghana version with South African and Ghanaian families, that is planned to debut in the first quarter of 2020.
The South African and Ghana broadcast partners are not yet known.
In Family Feud, a show that Steve Harvey started hosting in 2010 in the United States, two families compete to name the correct responses from a group of people to survey questions as they attempt to win prizes with what the most general answer was.
Steve Harvey isn't really known to South African and Africa viewers. A few seasons of his now-cancelled Steve Harvey Show talk show was first broadcast since 2012 on M-Net's M-Net Series channel after which it also started on SABC1 with M-Net moving it to Mzansi Magic from 2013.
Steve Harvey is most recognised for the implosion of his image when he made the big mistake and then went underground after he announcing the then-Miss Colombia 2016 as the winner of the Miss Universe pageant and struggled to correct it.
Family Feud South Africa will be filmed in South Africa. It's not known whether the Ghana version will be filmed in South Africa or Ghana.
The show has been seen in 50 international markets outside of the United States and will now include South Africa with Family Feud SA and Family Feud Ghana which will be the first localised African versions.
In a deal with Fremantle, Steve Harvey’s media company Steve Harvey Global acquired the format licensing rights for a South African and Ghana version of Family Feud with the South African production company Rapid Blue that will be producing it.
"Bringing Family Feud to Africa has long been a dream of mine," says Steve Harvey in a statement."I believe Family Feud will become a household name for local South African and Ghanaian families. And this is just the beginning in Africa. I expect this show to lead to multiple media and business projects in and throughout the continent."
Duncan Irvine, Rapid Blue CEO, says "Family is the cornerstone of life in South Africa and Ghana, and we are confident that we will see some wonderful families take part and that both seasons will resonate well with audiences here".
"We're planning additional projects with Steve Harvey and his team for viewers here in Africa."
The local version of Family Feud South Africa will start production in Johannesburg in the last quarter of 2019 by Rapid Blue that is part of the BBC Studios international family of production companies and works on BBC Studios Africa productions and produces shows like The Bachelor South Africa for M-Net.
The Family Feud Africa business deal was negotiated and executed by Anahita Kheder, Fremantle's senior vice president for sales and distribution for the Middle East, Africa and South Eastern Europe region; and Brandon R Williams, Steve Harvey Global's chief operating officer (COO) and chief legal officer.
"We have a longstanding relationship with Steve Harvey and once we heard about his dream of taking our iconic format to Africa, we partnered to make it a reality," says Anahita Kheder.
"Rapid Blue has been our trusted producers across the region for many years, so it made sense to join them up with Steve Harvey Global to make the local African versions of Family Feud."
