KBS’ Next-Door Families Wins First Digital Honor at Monte-Carlo TV Festival

KBS' digital content series "Next-Door Families," produced by the broadcaster's Low Birthrate Crisis Response Broadcasting Team, has won the Best Original Digital Creation award in the digital category of the Golden Nymph Awards at the 65th Monte-Carlo TV Festival.

The win makes the Korean program the first title to be recognized in the festival's newly introduced digital competition section. For KBS, the significance lies not only in the trophy, but in the fact that a YouTube-style talk format about the meaning of family was acknowledged on an international stage.

The Monte-Carlo TV Festival evaluates television and video content from around the world across areas including fiction, news and documentaries, and digital programming. The digital category, newly established in 2026, focuses on original content shaped for online viewing environments, including unscripted formats built around the reactions and conversations of real people.

On the winners list, the work is named "Next-Door Families - What Makes a Family?" and is credited to KBS and Yoo Kyung-hyun. The Korean title's intent is reflected in the English title: rather than treating family as a single fixed answer, the series asks people living different kinds of lives to explain family in their own way.

The first released episode, "Two Mothers? | The Birth of a Family," was hosted by Kwak Beom and featured Sayuri, Hong Seok-cheon, Kim Kyu-jin and others. Their conversation centered on single motherhood by choice, LGBTQ families, and life after coming out.

Low birthrate is a subject frequently discussed in Korean society, but when the issue is presented only through numbers and policy, viewers can easily feel removed from it. "Next-Door Families" approaches the question through the voices of actual people, asking who forms a family, what kinds of relationships raise children, and whether society has pushed aside certain families simply because they are unfamiliar.

Korean entertainment programs have often been described through their strengths in fast editing, character-driven performance, and the rhythm of reality variety. "Next-Door Families" connects that familiar entertainment grammar with a public issue suited to a public broadcaster, while also using an online-friendly length, conversational tone, and the lived experiences of its guests.

With the first award in the new digital category, "Next-Door Families" now stands as a Korean content example that goes beyond entertainment by turning social questions into direct conversation.