Japanese commercial broadcaster and programmer, Fuji TV, and Phil Gurin’s Los Angeles-based TGC Global Entertainment (TGC GE) opened Mip TV in Cannes this morning with comedy social-experiment format co-development, "The Swap Project". 

The new show, the latest in a long-standing creative partnership between the two companies, is part of this year’s market conversation about Japan’s leadership in formats exports. 

"The Swap Project" premiered on Fuji TV in Japan in February as a series of 60-mins episodes. 

Described as an “East-meets-West, fish-out-of-water format”, the show sees two people from different sides of the world but with the same occupation swap lives for a week, exchanging both professional and personal responsibilities. 

Gurin said the show was, in addition to being ”a sweet, funny format”, was “also a front-line exploration of difference and otherness, and how these can be overcome if we focus on the things that unite rather than divide us”