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Jamie Foxx will host an upcoming interactive musical game show on Fox called Beat Shazam.
Fox Television Group CEO Gary Newman made the announcement Wednesday at the Television Critics Association press tour in Pasadena.
“Jamie is a quadruple-threat and creative genius,” said Mark Burnett, executive producer and president of MGM Television. “He is an incredible actor, comedian, singer and dancer. Also, his musical knowledge is so great that he could probably… Beat Shazam.”
In the upcoming series, teams of two will race against the clock and each other as they attempt to identify the biggest hit songs of all time. In the end, the team with the highest score will outlast the competition and go against Shazam, a popular song identification app, for the chance to win a cash prize.
The network has given the show a straight-to-series order and has scheduled it to premiere in this summer.
“We want Beat Shazam to be our big summer event,” Newman said.
Also another game show was announced with another celebrity host. Bravo’s Andy Cohen (Watch What Happens Live) will host a reboot of the classic romantic game show Love Connection.
Cohen will also co-executive produce the show along with The Bachelor creator Mike Fleiss.
Each episode of Love Connection will feature single men and/or women in search of romance. After the singles are sent on three blind dates, they will dish the dirt in front of a live studio audience, as Cohen brings his personal brand of fun to the series.
The 15-episode, one-hour dating series promises “to amp up the original hit dating show for today’s audience.” It will premiere this summer.
Newman was also excited to talk about the network’s growing audience, saying that in the age of streaming TV, Fox was “the only broadcast network to post year-to-year growth.”
In an effort to continually be fresh, the first ever hour-long Simpsons episode will also premiere. Also, it was announced that Lee Daniels’ Empire would be picked up for a fourth season.
Newman outlined that all of these new shows were part of the network’s strategy to drive a larger audience.
“We know people don’t like commercial interruptions,” he said. “You will see a lot of off-air integrations and off-air connections betweens brands and our shows.” For example, he referenced the 24: Legacy virtual reality experience that Fox collaborated on with Samsung.
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