Innovating the transnational TV: Cultural roots and affect in the production design of MasterChef Spain

This article examines how production design functions as a mechanism of cultural adaptation in transnational television formats through a case study of MasterChef Spain . It argues that innovation emerges not only through technological or narrative change, but through the spatial reconfiguration of televisual experience. Through comparative analysis with the UK, US and Australian editions, the article demonstrates how MasterChef Spain reshapes the global format according to the expressive and ensemble-oriented conventions of Spanish television and theatrical traditions. Production design therefore emerges as a central site through which global formats are culturally re-signified and affectively anchored.