CANNES: FremantleMedia has secured five new commissions for the highly entertaining factual reality series The Lie Detective. Devised by True North, the format, which sees a human lie detector put couples in the hot seat to test their honesty, has been picked up by SBS (Belgium), Antenna (Greece), STV Pirma! (Latvia), RTL 5 (Netherlands) and TV2 (Norway). FremantleMedia holds the global rights (excluding the US) for the format.

FremantleMedia Head of Global Entertainment Production Chris O’Dell said, “We are delighted at the fantastic reception The Lie Detective has received from the international broadcasters. We’re excited to work with them to deliver local versions of the entertainingly honest and distinctly frank format.”

True North executive producer Fiona O’Sullivan said, “It’s great to see The Lie Detective take off in so many territories so quickly. It’s a completely captivating concept with so many universal themes, it will be amazing to see all the hard work everyone has put into its creation and production manifest in these international series.”

The highly-charged series, which launched on Channel 4 (UK) in Autumn 2016, sees current couples, wannabe couples, and ex-couples engage in heart-to-heart and compellingly candid conversations with their loved ones to find out whether they’ve always told it like it is, or whether their relationship has been based on lies. Dan Ribacoff will return as the Lie Detective in the Netherlands version of the show where he will use his incredible ability to read body language with genuine polygraph tests to give the couples answers to their long running problems.

Meanwhile, the local versions will be presented by new experts, who will lend their own unique and extensive knowledge to the format.