Dutch Sony Venture to Produce Reality Show Based on Drama 'Strong Medicine'

LONDON -- Sony Pictures Television’s Dutch production venture Tuvalu Media will prescribe a Dutch version of hit U.S. drama series Strong Medicine for local viewers.

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Tuvalu has secured a commission with SBS to produce Stories from the Hospital, billed as a new reality format based on the U.S. show.

The Dutch broadcaster has ordered a series of 30 half-hour episodes for NET5, SBS’s female-skewing channel aimed at the 20-34 year-old audience.

The show, called Dokters locally, will be air weekdays in a primetime 8 p.m. slot, launching in late October.

SPT’s international production and distribution teams will launch the fresh format to buyers during the upcoming television market MIPCOM in France.

Stories From the Hospital combines plotted storytelling with intimate, true to life experiences about patients and their doctors.

Each episode promises to use the self-contained storylines from the U.S. drama scripts played out by participants whose real life experiences mirrored those of the drama’s characters

"They say ‘life imitates art’ and this new format will soon have it imitating television as well,"  said Tuvalu Media joint managing director Duurt Holman. "Drama plots can seem far-fetched but Stories From the Hospital proves this wrong as authentic characters and experiences give a second, and very real, life to what was previously only fiction."

The original show Strong Medicine  was produced by SPT for Lifetime, with 130 episodes created. 

The series followed the lives of staff in the women’s health clinic of a fictitious hospital in Philadelphia and was created by Tammy Ader and executive produced by Ader, Whoopi Goldberg, Diane Messina Stanley, Jim Stanley and John Flynn.