Today, Monday 18 May, Mediacrest begins shooting the second season of The Chase (Spanish adaptation), the game show hosted by Ion Aramendi, whose participants include the legendary game show winners Erundino Alonso, Lilit Manukyan, Paz Herrera and Ruth de Andrés. The first season is currently being aired on TVE’s LA1 at 18:15 from Monday to Friday. 

Beginning filming amid the Coronavirus pandemic has made Mediacrest a pioneer in taking extraordinary measures, both for the show’s staff and its contestants, which are in line with health authority recommendations and include additional elements to minimise any infection risk. To ensure all security and hygiene protocols are correctly observed and all processes monitored, Mediacrest has incorporated a protocol supervisor, thereby guaranteeing employees’ compliance with the established procedures. 

To start with, among the adopted measures, the entire pre-production process was carried out from the homes of the staff members involved, while auditions were run online. As for the filming of the show itself, there is no studio audience and any staff working in control, production, direction and researching have been repositioned so that they can maintain a safe distance, with partition screens installed between all workstations. 

Part of the production budget has been used to purchase protection elements like triple-layer face masks, FFP2 masks, vinyl gloves, alcohol-based hand sanitisers, protective screens for makeup, partition screens, thermal systems with thermometers and facial recognition, ozone generators and tests for staff and contestants. Cleaning work has been stepped up and all facilities and workstations disinfected. 

In the studio

In the studio, security measures will be taken bearing in mind the specific characteristics of filming this kind of show. All required safety distances between contestants and between these and the host have been ensured, and all cleaning and disinfection protocols have been followed, required to shoot a high-level programme such as this with all the necessary guarantees. 

This is how The Chase is handling its second season, after registering high levels of viewer loyalty and a significant increase in younger viewers - not typically an audience profile for this game show’s evening slot.