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TVFORMATS
WWW.TVFORMATS.WS
OCTOBER 2017
Format Buyers / Dance Formats / Daily Strips Gordon Ramsay / FOX’s Rob Wade / Gary Barlow
MIPCOM EDITION
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18 TV FORMATS
CONTENTS FEATURES
Ricardo Seguin Guise Publisher Anna Carugati Group Editorial Director Mansha Daswani Editor Kristin Brzoznowski Executive Editor Joanna Padovano Tong Managing Editor Sara Alessi Associate Editor Victor L. Cuevas Production & Design Director Phyllis Q. Busell Art Director Simon Weaver Online Director Dana Mattison Senior Sales & Marketing Manager Nathalia Lopez Sales & Marketing Assistant Andrea Moreno Business Affairs Manager
Ricardo Seguin Guise President Anna Carugati Executive VP Mansha Daswani Associate Publisher & VP of Strategic Development TV Formats © 2017 WSN INC. 1123 Broadway, #1207 New York, NY 10010 Phone: (212) 924-7620 Fax: (212) 924-6940 Website: www.tvformats.ws
Tuned In
36 NEXT BIG THING?
Confession: I’m a binge-viewer. I frequently indulge in back-to-back episodes of my favorite shows, planted in front of the TV set at whatever time I can wrap up my day—so I’m pretty much always watching on-demand and playing catch-up.
44 LET’S DANCE
DVRs/PVRs, streaming services and on-demand offerings are the staples of my media diet. There is a large and rather notable exception, though: entertainment. For me, and many other viewers around the world, big shiny-floor prime-time competition series just beg to be watched live. The spectacle of the performances—be it singing, dancing or talent of any sort—and nail-biting tension of the results that lead up to the emotion-filled moments of eliminations and crowning the winners, are elements that make people tune in to a network at a certain day and time to watch the action as it unfolds. In this issue of TV Formats, we explore the many ways that dance formats are being taken to new heights, luring viewers in droves to their TVs to watch live. We also hear from Gary Barlow, who spent several seasons as the head judge on The X Factor in the U.K., about putting a new spin on the singing-competition genre with Let It Shine. Gordon Ramsay shares with us the secret sauce of some of his megahits, including The F Word and MasterChef Junior. FOX’s Rob Wade talks about the U.S. network’s new singing competition The Four, as he, too, is looking for the next big thing. TV Formats also surveys a range of leading buyers in this issue about the types of formats they’re currently on the lookout for in the marketplace. While some want the glamour of a shiny-floor hit, others want the emotional journey of a social experiment. Factual entertainment has been a particularly hot genre as of late, referenced by many distributors as one that’s seeing a lot of demand. There’s also a healthy appetite for stripped formats that can be scheduled through the week, at the same time each day. We look at the market for high-volume, cost-effective strips in another special feature in this edition of TV Formats. Up till now, I have needed to get my entertainment fix live, but that could be changing soon, as on-demand giants like Netflix dip their toes further into the reality competition arena. Live or on-demand, today’s hot formats are here to entertain. —Kristin Brzoznowski
Leading broadcasters across the globe are still searching for the next big idea in the format world.
Dance formats are being taken to new heights.
44 50 STRIP TEASE There’s strong demand for high-volume formats that can be stripped throughout the week.
50
INTERVIEWS
56
Gordon Ramsay
60 FOX’s Rob Wade
64
Gary Barlow + Executive Producer Guy Freeman
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Dear Grandfather 22 TV FORMATS
13Sudmedia Vertigo / Irreversible / Dear Grandfather The game show Vertigo features five celebrities competing for a trip to a heavenly destination, but first they must win the affection and trust of the audience. The spectators vote in real time for their favorite TV stars; the ones with the fewest votes are eliminated, and only one can be the winner in the end. “We are convinced that Vertigo is a format capable of conquering every market,” says Rodrigo Correa Pohl, the content sales manager for Canal 13 Chile. Irreversible, which has self-contained episodes, is inspired by real-life criminal cases. Dear Grandfather is a scripted comedy series about a single mother and her son, who enlists his fun-loving grandfather to help out around the house. “Dear Grandfather is a perfect mix between comedy and daily life that has very charismatic characters,” says Correa Pohl.
“These are three powerful and diverse formats that have proven to be very appealing to different audiences.” —Rodrigo Correa Pohl
A+E Networks Live PD / Undercover High / Making a Model with… Setting the new trend of live formats is Live PD, one of A+E Networks’ highlights, which looks on as dash cams along with fixed-rig and handheld cameras capture the work of police officers on a typical night patrol. “Our newest format, Live PD, is among the most innovative in the media landscape,” says Ellen Lovejoy, the VP, head of content sales for the Americas and formats at A+E Networks. “The groundbreaking series comes to MIPCOM on the heels of significant success in the U.S. on A&E, where Live PD continues to set ratings records.” The company is also showcasing Undercover High, which sees six adults secretly explore some of the most troubled schools in America, and Making a Model with…, featuring a boot camp for aspiring young models and their “momangers.”
Live PD
“We are a distinct seller within the marketplace with engaging content that reflects the cultural zeitgeist.” —Ellen Lovejoy
Armoza Formats
Back to Life
The Final Four / Perfect 10 / Back to Life Armoza Formats’ singing competition The Final Four has already sold into a slew of territories, including the U.S. The company is looking to add to that roster of broadcasters at MIPCOM, where it will also be promoting Perfect 10, a prime-time dating show that helps average-looking singles find love while also transforming their physical appearance. Another launch highlight is Back to Life, a docu-reality show that features the stories of patients and their families while they wait for a life-saving transplant. “All three of these formats take you through a unique journey: the journey to stardom, the journey to true love and the emotional journey of a transplant recipient and their donor,” says Sharon Levi, the company’s head of sales. “You will be able to see the development of the people on screen in a very real way.”
“We are coming to the market with a focused lineup that revolves around emotional formats that will take you on a journey.” —Sharon Levi
456 WORLD SCREEN 10/17
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The Crystal Maze
24 TV FORMATS
Banijay Rights The Crystal Maze / Celebrity School / Survivor A team of five contestants journey through four fantastical time zones in the adventure game show The Crystal Maze. “The Crystal Maze is one of the most distinctive and enduring formats ever to have been produced in the U.K., and we’re thrilled that RDF/Fizz have been able to faithfully update it for 2017,” says Andrew Sime, the VP of formats at Banijay Rights. “We expected the new production to delight those viewers who were already familiar with the show, but it’s been really exciting to see such engagement among younger viewers, too.” Celebrity School is a new prime-time entertainment format that pits a panel of famous personalities against groups of school-aged children. The company is also highlighting the adventure reality series Survivor, which films a group of castaways marooned on an island.
“Banijay has consolidated its position as the world’s leading producer of adventure reality shows.”
—Andrew Sime
BBC Worldwide
Astronauts: Toughest Job in the Universe
Astronauts: Toughest Job in the Universe/Pitch Battle / The Boss In Astronauts: Toughest Job in the Universe, 12 ordinary people take part in a six-week selection process to prove they’ve got the combination of scientific, physical and psychological skills needed to become an astronaut. “This is not the average job-selection process, and the candidates are not your regular reality-show contributors,” says Sumi Connock, the creative director of formats at BBC Worldwide. “The intelligence within this format (and our contestants) and the universe we explore is thrilling and exciting new territory.” From the creators of You’re Back in the Room, Pitch Battle sees the best singing groups in the country go head-to-head in choral combat. The Boss is a daily quiz show that “ticks that box for affordable, adaptable, completely scalable game shows that are in high demand,” says Connock.
“BBC Worldwide is home to some of the world’s most-talked-about, loved and highimpact factual-entertainment formats.” —Sumi Connock
CJ E&M
Patrimonio mundial - Herencia de la humanidad
Shadow Singer / Leaving the Nest / Youn’s Kitchen Studio-based and reality-show formats are performing well for CJ E&M at the moment. Highlights from the company’s nonscripted slate include Shadow Singer, a musical entertainment format; Leaving the Nest, an observational reality show; and Youn’s Kitchen, a travel/cooking program. “Game shows and singing shows are still [going] strong,” says Jin Woo Hwang, the head of formats and global content development at CJ E&M. “However, the [demand] for singing shows is not for nationwide talent-search formats but rather for light, fast-paced musical entertainment.” Hwang adds: “Earlier this year, CJ E&M recruited some of Korea’s finest creators and producers to our creative/production arms. We have been working together for some time to bring the freshest formats [to the market], and we are very happy to release the results at MIPCOM.”
Shadow Singer
“CJ E&M is providing fresh local hits from our new creative talents to the global arena.” —Jin Woo Hwang 458 WORLD SCREEN 10/17
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Electus International The Toy Box / Running Wild with Bear Grylls / The Last Resort The Toy Box returns to ABC in the U.S. for a second season this month, and Electus International has the format to offer global buyers. “The first season of The Toy Box proved that the formula of wish-fulfillment (amateur toy makers vying for a chance to fulfill their dreams), family viewing (kid judges) and fantastic partnerships (Mattel, Toys“R”Us and Eric Stonestreet) can deliver a ratings success that can travel quickly around the world,” says John Pollak, the president of worldwide television and international at Electus. Running Wild with Bear Grylls is going into its fourth season on NBC, while The Last Resort has finished its run on Nine Network in Australia. “Because of their successful runs, each of these formats has really made an impact overseas, and we are confident that will continue for seasons to come,” says Pollak.
The Toy Box
“This year, we’re excited to bring three titles that have become hugely successful for us.” —John Pollak
FremantleMedia
The Artisan
The Recording Studio / The Artisan / Your Song Six talented artisans with unique skills seek the perfect apprentice in The Artisan, a “creative, feel-good and inspirational” show, according to Rob Clark, the director of global entertainment at FremantleMedia. “The original version of the format was developed by our team in France and features artisans who are trying to bring their skills and expertise to new generations in the hope of keeping these niche crafts alive.” Also on offer is The Recording Studio, in which individuals capture the most important song of their lives in a world-class studio. “The Recording Studio is a once-in-alifetime experience for its participants and a heartfelt series of positivity for the audience,” says Clark. There is also Your Song, which looks on as extraordinary people are given a performance from one of their favorite musicians.
“In 2016, we were named the top format seller and distributor in the world— a huge achievement!” —Rob Clark
Global Agency
Patrimonio mundial - Herencia de la humanidad
In and Out / Beat the Wheel / Cash or Splash In the game show In and Out, a contestant is given 14 selections hidden in boxes, and they start the game with $10,000 in cash in their bank. Inside each of the boxes are money prizes, boosters and dividers, and one bankruptcy card. “There is no quitting, and if they get to the end without choosing the bankruptcy card, they will win the amount they finish the game with,” explains Umay Ayaz, the head of acquisitions at Global Agency. “It is the easiest and most fun game to earn money. This is why it is so easy to adapt in each territory.” Also a game show, Beat the Wheel sees contestants try to outsmart a giant hybrid digital/physical wheel and raise its maximum value up to $1 million. Cash or Splash watches as contestants are at risk of being dropped into a water trap while trying to win money.
In and Out
“In and Out is an exciting game show where your prize money can be increased or divided or you can go bankrupt at any moment.” —Umay Ayaz 460 WORLD SCREEN 10/17
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28 TV FORMATS
GMA Worldwide
My Superstar
Until We Meet Again / The Other Mrs. Real / My Superstar While GMA Worldwide has been working to extend the reach of its dramas in the international market, the company has also seen the value of selling its scripts as formats. “Viewers enjoy watching dramas that portray strong family values, love and romance, and the triumph of truth and justice,” says Manuel Paolo Laurena, the senior sales manager of GMA Worldwide. Highlights from its slate of scripted formats include Until We Meet Again, The Other Mrs. Real and My Superstar. “We have an ongoing goal to make GMA the primary source of quality Filipino dramas,” says Laurena. “We hope to strengthen our relationships with our partners and meet new buyers at MIPCOM. Of course, the immediate and primary goal is to sell content to as many territories as possible.”
“GMA’s drama formats will do well internationally because the dramas we produce illustrate real-life experiences that the viewers can easily relate to.” —Manuel Paolo Laurena
Inter Medya
1 vs. 10
Money Monster / 1 vs. 10 / The Tactic The quiz format 1 vs. 10 is among the highlights that Inter Medya is presenting to international buyers at the market in Cannes. “Instead of answering the questions, [the contestant] needs to choose one person among ten who he/she thinks would not know the answer,” says Can Okan, the company’s founder and CEO. “However, if that person answers correctly, they win. If not, the contestant wins!” Another format from the Inter Medya catalog is Money Monster. “A unique and fun quiz show in which the contestant wins as much cash as he/she can count in one minute, Money Monster is not only entertaining but also stimulating,” says Okan. Then there is The Tactic, which Okan describes as “an adventure show where contestants get to showcase their strength and endurance.”
“We have been constantly working on creating fresh formats to broaden our catalog.”
—Can Okan
KABO International Our Crazy Family / Cops on the Block / Tilt A seasoned hit on M6 in France, Our Crazy Family is a comedy format that follows the antics of a multigenerational family. Another scripted comedy format from the KABO International catalog is Cops on the Block, which centers on a police captain and his motley crew of officers. “Both Our Crazy Family and Cops on the Block are based on one of KABO’s signature products: the Pick’n Mix sitcom format, which is comprised of thousands of individual comedy sketches that can be assembled in any order to suit a broadcaster’s programming schedule,” says Arabelle Pouliot-Di Crescenzo, the company’s managing director. There is also the interactive game show Tilt. “Tilt is the first format to use VR and mixed-reality production technologies in broadcast TV and takes the traditional game show to a whole new level,” says Pouliot-Di Crescenzo.
Cops on the Block
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“Both Our Crazy Family and Cops on the Block have strong characters, and the scripts offer universal comedic elements that transcend cultural barriers.” —Arabelle Pouliot-Di Crescenzo
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30 TV FORMATS
Keshet International Masters of Dance / Domination / Celebrity Showmance The studio-based competition format Masters of Dance was recently renewed for a second season in Israel. “For big networks looking for distinctive, tentpole, shiny-floor series, Masters of Dance is a brilliant choice,” says Keren Shahar, the COO and president of distribution at Keshet International. “It’s a proven, ratings-winning prime-time series with amazing energy and nonstop action.” The company is also promoting Domination, a national TV event that sees one studio contestant attempt to outsmart the entire nation in a game of knowledge and power. Then there is Celebrity Showmance, a high-concept comedy entertainment show created, developed and produced by Keshet UK for ITV2. “Six single celebrities are paired into three very unlikely ‘couples’ who go to hilarious lengths to convince the public that they’re in a real romantic relationship,” says Shahar.
Celebrity Showmance
“We continue to deliver concepts that are genre-busting and original, but also fully developed and tried-and-tested in their country of origin.” —Keren Shahar
Mediaset Distribution
Donnavventura
Rosy Abate / Tuscan Passion / Donnavventura Mediaset Distribution is launching the crime drama Rosy Abate. “The story is focused on a feminine character, Rosy, who broke up her criminal past by assuming a new identity but is forced to go back to her previous life in order to rescue her kidnapped son,” explains Manuela Caputi, the company’s head of sales. Also in the way of scripted fare, there is Tuscan Passion and the crime series City Cops. The scripts for these shows are offered by the company, which also has in its catalog the reality adventure series Donnavventura. In the reality show, a group of young and fearless women are selected to form a team with one mission: to report from the most unexplored corners of the world. Caputi says that series is “a real tribute to the ambitions and curiosity of a young female team ready to discover the world and land a dream job.”
“At MIPCOM, our content is very focused on the strength of women.” —Manuela Caputi
Nippon TV
YES MAN Discovers the World
Witness the Fitness/Impress Us/YES MAN Discovers the World Professionals hone their skills to reach the pinnacle of their physical vocations in the studio game show Witness the Fitness. “The battles might make you giggle, but these professionals are putting their pride at stake,” says Shigeko “Cindy” Chino, the senior director of international business development at Nippon TV. “Witness the Fitness is a new game show that sheds light on the body parts of professionals through unique games.” In the social experiment Impress Us, members of the general public take part in quizzes and challenges. The reality entertainment show YES MAN Discovers the World looks at what happens when a traveler heads to a new destination and is only allowed to say “yes” to whatever comes their way. “With the universal language of gestures and the power of positivity, what could possibly go wrong?” Chino says.
“In YES MAN Discovers the World, the unplanned and unscripted three-day journey will produce unpredictable results.” —Shigeko “Cindy” Chino
464 WORLD SCREEN 10/17
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Family Silence
Pol-ka Producciones Only You / Family Silence / Cunning Girls The scripted comedy Only You centers on a man in his 40s, a father of five children, who is forced to start over after his wife asks for “a break” and he loses his job. Pol-ka Producciones is offering the scripts to the comedy for local adaptation. The company is also looking to shore up format sales for the dramedy Family Silence and Cunning Girls. “Cunning Girls is a female-driven drama about a passionate group of women who have to cope with the bankruptcy of the bank where they have their savings and must start over with their projects,” says Manuel Marti, the international development and production director at Pol-ka Producciones. The series follows as the five women work to get back on track financially and emotionally.
“We’re a 20-year-old company with lots of experience and local talent ready to co-produce for the EU and international markets.”
—Manuel Marti
Red Arrow International
Buying Blind
Buying Blind / The Spouse House / Pregnant with a Stranger The reality format Buying Blind sees a family who can’t decide what house to buy put their life savings in the hands of experts to purchase them a home without ever having seen it. In The Spouse House, 14 single people searching for the love of their lives move into a home together with the hopes of leaving married. Pregnant with a Stranger follows single women who have decided to have a baby being given help and support to find the right father for their child. “Red Arrow’s focus for MIPCOM is to continue to be bold,” says Henrik Pabst, the managing director of Red Arrow International. These three formats are bold and “ask universal questions—and sometimes difficult questions—that challenge the status quo,” he says.
TV Asahi
“The formats we are presenting this market are more original and bold than ever before.” —Henrik Pabst
vs KIDS Patrimonio mundial - Herencia de la humanidad
vs KIDS / After Dark / Experts Visiting Experts The sports entertainment format vs KIDS pits a former top professional athlete against a kid champion of the same field. “You would think that the former top professionals would have the upper hand, but amazingly the opposite is often true; the kid champions give the ex-pros an excruciatingly hard time in a serious match with real competition rules,” says Yuka Kakui, TV Asahi’s head of format development and sales in the international business department. Another new offering is After Dark, which Kakui describes as an “avant-garde, documentary-style, talent-driven format.” It follows a big personality as they hit the town after dark by themselves. Experts Visiting Experts, which sees professionals from a certain field visit their counterparts in a foreign country, has already been a prime-time hit in Japan.
“Besides non-scripted formats, we are also looking to expand our scripted-format efforts going forward.” —Yuka Kakui 466 WORLD SCREEN 10/17
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Twentieth Century Fox Television Distribution 24 / Prison Break / How I Met Your Mother
24
The serial drama 24 won over legions of fans in the U.S. and around the world, and Twentieth Century Fox Television Distribution is offering up the format for international buyers. “In India, we have produced two seasons of 24 with great success, and we have also licensed the localized series to 50 countries,” says Dorothy Crompton, the company’s VP of format licensing. The format for Prison Break is also on offer, with its “multiple storylines and many twists” being highlights for global broadcasters. How I Met Your Mother, meanwhile, is a love story told in reverse that features comedy, romance and friendships. “There are some things that connect people around the world no matter where they might live and each of these appeals to a broad audience because of these themes,” says Crompton.
“Audiences have a great desire for localized versions of hit U.S. television series.” —Dorothy Crompton
Twofour Rights Change Your Tune/ This Time Next Year / A Night with My Ex Twofour Rights is promoting the “Time Travel Television” brand, in which viewers get to see real-life transformations in an instantaneous time-travel format. In Change Your Tune, for example, bad singers perform in front of a live studio audience. What’s been weeks of training for the contestants will be revealed to the viewers in an instant as the curtain rises and the singers perform again, this time singing to win the show and a cash prize. “Change Your Tune is a fresh and warm take on the traditional singing format,” says Melanie Leach, the chief executive of Twofour Group. “It’s a down-to-earth and relatable way of exploring singing ambitions.” There’s also the personal-transformation show This Time Next Year and business series Give It a Year, in addition to the entertainment format A Night with My Ex.
A Night with My Ex
“This year we’ve really focused on a catalog of formats that can deliver big audiences for a competitive price.” —Melanie Leach
Workpoint Group
Little Lightning Patrimonio mundial - Herencia de la humanidad
Mic On Start Up / Little Lightning / The Spy Game A singing competition, Mic On Start Up sees two contestants compete to have their dream projects funded. It is a spin-off of the successful format Mic On Debt Off, which has been produced in Indonesia for more than 200 episodes within just six months. Little Lightning is a spinoff from the adult-centric Lightning Quiz, this time with young players. The contestants are placed in a roller-coaster seat, which moves up and down. The Spy Game is an action-filled game show. It requires intelligence to win, and the losers get a crazy punishment. “Apart from increasing the presence and awareness of Workpoint Group, we aim to offer our award-winning formats to the world at MIPCOM this year,” says Dhanasak Hoonarak, the company’s chief business development executive.
“Workpoint Group offers award-winning game, quiz and comedy shows to the world market.” —Dhanasak Hoonarak 468 WORLD SCREEN 10/17
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BBC Worldwide’s Stupid Man, Smart Phone.
36 TV FORMATS
Jo Stephens hears from several leading buyers about the types of formats they’re on the lookout for. f the most-asked question in format land is, “Where’s the next big thing?” then “What do buyers want?” is surely the second. There are, of course, as many answers as there are buyers and commissioners. Some want feel-good storytelling, some want shiny-floor glamour, others want poignant emotional journeys. But beyond genre and flavor, there are several common denominators. Everybody’s looking for inclusive, topical and authentic concepts that are returnable, scalable, extendable, bendable and capable of delivering on both linear and digital. And, as Anette Romer, TV 2 Denmark’s head of acquisitions and formats, points out, most also want something that’s relevant to their audience’s lives, cultures and experiences.
I
“My perfect format would be a show that feels entertaining, engaging and inspiring,” Romer says. “A show that makes you feel that watching it has been time well spent.” At the top of Romer’s MIPCOM shopping list are factual entertainment and pure entertainment formats, mainly for TV 2’s prime-time slots. She is also seeking shows capable of engaging younger viewers on TV 2 sister channels Charlie and Zulu. “Our briefs haven’t changed much over the years,” she adds. “We’re always looking for creatives who can paint the picture from a new and fresh perspective.” Romer touches on a sensitive point. Over the past few years, there has been much talk about the format market’s lackluster performance on the “new and fresh” front. The creative end of the business has been criticized for failing to
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38 TV FORMATS
formats and innovative platforms gives you a chance to tell better stories to more people—at any time of the day,” she adds. For Stallwood, genres are never out, or, indeed, in. “The power of a story to engage our audience is all that matters. There’s no such thing as a perfect format, because the needs and behaviors of your audience are always changing. We have to understand our viewers and constantly reinvent ourselves if we want to keep engaging and inspiring.” Given this philosophy, it is no surprise to learn that MTG is producer-agnostic when it comes to adapting formats to local markets, selecting the creative team it feels will “tell the story best.” Since MTG includes content powerhouse nice entertainment group, which consists of some 30 production companies in 17 countries, it has no shortage of creative options within its own corporate family.
Hvem tror du at du er? on Norway’s NRK is based on Who Do You Think You Are? from Warner Bros.
generate ideas strong enough to challenge the mega-format franchises that continue to clog up global schedules. Broadcasters, meanwhile, have been accused of risk aversion, me-too-ism and shortsightedness. As traditional funding models implode, budgets contract and digital continues to fracture and fragment the market, investing the time and money necessary to develop and grow successful formats has gone from standard practice to luxury.
FACTUAL RENAISSANCE
SPEAKING GERMAN Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland employs a similar approach to localization. “It’s actually simple,” says Jörg Graf, COO of program affairs. “TV is made by people and different people have different skills. Sometimes, the best EP for a real-life show is not the best EP for a shiny-floor event show.” However, “bringing together the best format with the best creative talent” isn’t always easy, or indeed possible in a global industry increasingly given to M&As and vertical integration. Fortunately, Graf says, smart media companies recognize that pushing formats through “the pipeline of a value chain” is no substitute for investing in creative talent. Graf’s acquisition strategy is not driven by notions of what’s hot and what’s not given that he has a wide range of
Romer, however, believes the tide is turning—creatively, at least. “There are a lot of good ideas coming our way. It seems that factual and factual entertainment are experiencing a creative boost at the moment.” As for the prime-time stranglehold of the super-formats, she says, “To develop channels, you need a mix of well-known big brands and fresh, new, unproven formats.” Producing the latter, she adds, requires both courage and a broadcast culture that gives permission to fail. Fellow Nordic exec Karolina Stallwood, the VP of content at MTG, also reports an uptick in creativity. The problem, she says, isn’t a lack of big, brave concepts, but that, as video becomes increasingly ubiquitous, it’s getting harder and harder to find them. In this saturated environment, “even the most creative formats can get crowded out,” she observes. Meanwhile, the battle for eyeballs is intensifying, adding to the temptation to fall back on proven bankers. The irony, of course, is that audiences crave the shock and excitement of the new, not the predictability and safety of the old. As Stallwood points out, “Why not be bold and try new things? After all, that’s exactly what our viewers are doing.” Stallwood defines a format as “a framework for telling stories” and cites drama, reality and factual entertainment as particularly suited to MTG’s mission of providing its viewers with engaging storytelling across its platform universe. “Combining great Factual-entertainment formats, such as Twofour’s Happy Families, are in strong demand. 472 WORLD SCREEN 10/17
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TV 2 in Denmark adapted Banijay Rights’ SAS: Who Dares Wins format.
RTL channels to feed, with correspondingly wide requirements. “We don’t exclude any genre or time slot,” he says. But what’s definitely “out,” he adds, are “format owners, producers and broadcasters who don’t think and act as partners, [since] each of them can prevent a format from being successful.” When it comes to acquisitions, RTL’s current focus is on prime-time reality, real-life and variety shows. International formats remain “an important pillar for our channels,” Graf says, pointing to The Best Singers and Dragons’ Den on VOX, and Ninja Warrior, The Bachelor, Got Talent and Let’s Dance on RTL. While RTL’s daytime fare has traditionally consisted of domestic productions, again this is not a hard-and-fast rule. “We would do international format-based shows, too, if they were promising,” Graf reports.
SURVIVING THE TIMES
and Talpa’s Dance Dance Dance. Significantly, many of these new shows are inhabiting the time slots previously filled by international scripted drama and feature films, rather than going head to head with existing non-scripted formats. In the end, Graf says, it comes down to whether a new contender is a stronger proposition than the incumbent. “We all know that ‘better’ is the enemy of ‘good,’ ” he points out. This is a sentiment echoed by Hannah Barnes, the general manager of the Lifestyle Channels at Foxtel, when she says, “I believe there is always room for a great new idea.” Barnes’s portfolio includes Foxtel’s flagship Lifestyle channel and its subsidiaries Lifestyle FOOD, Lifestyle YOU and Lifestyle HOME. “We acquire 1,200 hours per channel a year for all day parts,” Barnes reports, citing returnable, aspirational lifestyle series that can “live on linear and digital in a meaningful way” as her top priority. Recent acquisitions include Studio Lambert’s Common Sense. Gogglebox, Grand Designs, Selling Houses and Bake Off have also been successfully re-versioned for Australia. When assessing a potential format, Barnes requires a full proposal, a sizzle and a producer or creative with a strong track record attached. Once the show is commissioned, she prefers to work directly with the format-holder to find the right production company in Australia. As to how much leeway Lifestyle demands when it comes to the adaptation process, Barnes says it’s a fine line between respect for the IP and local relevance. The Great Australian Bake Off provides an example. “I think we are the only market in the world that didn’t use a tent for Bake Off, but a shed, which feels uniquely Australian.” Unsurprisingly, in light of Lifestyle’s mission to “inspire and entertain,” mean-spirited formats are definitely off Barnes’s wish list. “As a broadcaster, we are always looking
Deciding which formats are most promising is greatly influenced by the willingness of the IP owner to allow the original concept to be “Germanized,” Graf notes. “It’s not in our interest to jeopardize other people’s IP or to dilute brands,” he stresses. The object is not to buy a show and then reinvent it—“that wouldn’t make sense at all”—but to finesse the storytelling and certain elements, such as the role of the host, into a form that works for German audiences. This is something of an art form in itself and one that RTL has perfected in its home market. “We think this is the reason why we are so successful in keeping shows alive while they get canceled in other territories,” Graf observes. TV 2’s Romer backs up Graf’s view about localization. “Adapting a format is not about making as many changes as possible. It’s about analyzing and understanding the core idea and launching the best possible version of it in your own territory.” Back at RTL, Graf rejects the charge that, with the big format franchises still doing good business in prime time, broadcasters have neither the room nor the inclination to try out new concepts. In the past year, he points out, RTL alone has produced more than 20 new formats, both scripted and unscripted, including TBS’s Ninja Warrior (represented in Europe by The Story Lab), Warner Bros.’ 500 Questions MTG-owned TV3 in Lithuania runs Keshet International’s Traffic Light as a weekday strip. 474 WORLD SCREEN 10/17
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Grand Designs Australia, based on the FremantleMedia format, has been a big success for Foxtel’s Lifestyle channel.
to surprise and delight our viewers,” she says. “But being relevant and listening to your audience is more important than a quest for innovation.” With “adventure, survival and challenge” in its editorial DNA, RMC Découverte is keen on shows that innovate and disrupt. And according to Rodolphe Guignard, the French DTT channel’s head of productions and broadcast, there is no shortage of the former. “Regarding the level of innovation in today’s format business, I’m impressed. New tools are offering new opportunities to make great, visually amazing shows.”
CREATIVE LIMITS Guignard is less upbeat, however, about the level of creativity. He attributes this to the major broadcasters’ reluctance to take the road less traveled, both in terms of investing in new and surprising ideas, and daring to program against the genres du jour. “We notice that trends—dating, survival, whatever—have become widespread around the world,” he says. Against this backdrop, format creators are not encouraged to pitch anything but the same old, safe old concepts. Altice Group-owned RMC Découverte, however, is open to prime-time ideas that provoke, disrupt and provide its largely male-skewing audience with factual, factual entertainment and documentary content that is, as per its motto, “plus fort que la fiction” (“stronger than fiction”). “We’re not after the same audience profile as the main channels, so it’s easier for us to commission new shows on new topics,” Guignard adds. Founded in late 2012, RMC Découverte has come a long way in less than five years, much of it as a result of well-chosen and sensitively adapted international formats. By 2014, it had become France’s leading HD DTT channel, posting the biggest audience growth in the French TV sector that year. In 2015, it was the first European channel to adapt BBC Worldwide’s monster motoring format Top Gear. In June, it renewed its agreement with BBC Worldwide France for seasons four, five and six of the French version. The success of Top Gear, not just in France but in territories as culturally diverse as Australia, South Korea, China, Russia and the U.S., has much to do with the strength and clarity of
what Ole Hedemann, head of format development at Norway’s NRK, calls the “big idea.” Listing the criteria he uses to assess a format, Hedemann says, “I need to understand immediately why a show is unique and universal, how it’s scalable and how it can be exploited on NRK’s different platforms.” Creatively, he is looking for content that tackles national topics and has the potential to “get the nation talking…. And we always ask ourselves why we, at NRK, should produce this show, and what audience need it addresses.”
CHASING THE BIG IDEA Hedemann says game shows tend not to tick the boxes of NRK’s public-service remit. Genre-wise, a more likely bet is social-experiment reality and formatted documentary series, particularly if they are mobile- or online-first. In fact, don’t bother to pitch linear-only concepts to NRK. “Brave ideas,” however, are always welcome. As to where Hedemann scouts for the “fun, creative and modern formats” that work best for NRK, he says he prefers to shop with the smaller distributors over the big, consolidated suppliers. “Consolidation seems to stand in the way of local creativity, unfortunately,” he observes. Hedemann defines his ideal format as “a strong, ruling, modern, entertaining and interesting premise at the heart of a media project that can be exploited 360 degrees”—a description that will surely resonate with many format buyers as they struggle to balance risk and reward in an increasingly fragmented market. As the world becomes ever more precarious, and old certainties—and political orders—crash and burn, people are seeking clarity and credibility in their entertainment, RTL’s Graf suggests. They want obvious protagonists and antagonists. They want authentic emotion. They want, in short, to know where they are. This return to basics may explain the resurgence of shiny-floor entertainment formats, with their warm, upbeat, aspirational messages. One of the year’s stand-out successes, NBC’s The Wall, is a prime example of the feel-good phenomenon. “It’s not enough to have the nice content vessel of a game show,” Graf says. “It has to deal with existential needs in a credible way, especially in prime time.”
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Talpa’s Dance Dance Dance.
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Dance formats are being taken to new heights as producers and distributors innovate this popular genre. By Kristin Brzoznowski ance is often referred to as a universal language. Its ability to convey thoughts, emotions and sensations transcends cultural and linguistic boundaries, and as a visual art form, it can be appreciated by pretty much anyone—whether you can pirouette, foxtrot or pop and lock, or if you just enjoy watching those who can. It’s no wonder, then, that formats featuring dance at their core have been waltzing their way across the globe. None have done so more successfully than BBC Worldwide’s Strictly Come Dancing, known globally as Dancing with the Stars. The dance competition has now been licensed into more than 50 countries, with 3,500-plus episodes and 300 seasons recorded to date. Just a few years back, Guinness World Records declared it the world’s most successful reality TV format. The show hit the air in the U.K. in 2004, when there weren’t any other dance formats on prime-time television, according to Sumi Connock, the creative director of formats at BBC Worldwide. “It was the first of its kind and has pioneered the dance genre,” she says, adding that the series was an instant success. The format has its origins in Come Dancing, which ran from 1949 to 1998 on the BBC. The sequin-filled show featured amateur ballroom events held around the country, with professional dancers teaching viewers the moves, and the competition element was introduced later. The idea with Strictly was to build on the heritage of that long-running hit but update it with a glamorous twist: star power. “Celebrities gave it a brand-new USP, which was a point of difference,” says Connock. “We were launching it as an aspirational Saturday night prime-time show, so the use of celebrities helped it feel much more like event TV.” Indeed, the allure of seeing stars out of their element is a powerful one. Add to that glitzy costumes, opulent studio sets and pulse-pounding music and it’s a recipe for family entertainment at its best.
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Talpa Media, which turned the singing genre on its head with The Voice, has shaken up the dancing arena with Dance Dance Dance, a competition that sees celebrities reenact some of the world’s most iconic choreographed routines. The show has aired in a number of major markets, including the Netherlands, Germany, the U.K. and Italy. Having celebs at the center is a “key driver” of its success, says Annelies Noest, the director of formats and global network at Talpa Global. “It’s part of the amazement and fun. You are seeing people who are well known for being actors or TV personalities very much out of their comfort zone. You see them as real people—sweating, training, struggling.” Dance Dance Dance has taken the idea of a celebrity-led dance competition one step further as well, incorporating the latest visual effects. The show uses a giant LED wall and augmented reality to elevate the routines.
READY FOR BATTLE Talpa has also rolled out Battle on the Dance Floor, which is “less mainstream” than Dance Dance Dance “and requires a very different budget,” says Noest. The format features talented dance crews who not only compete against each other but also against the dance floor, which changes in size depending on the opinion of the jury. “You don’t have the celebrity aspect, but here the shrinking floor is an important element. It has never been seen before!” One of the buzziest new entrants to the TV dance space, World of Dance debuted this summer on NBC in the U.S. with global superstar Jennifer Lopez as a judge and executive producer. The show, which was one of the first projects to come from the newly launched Universal Television Alternative Studio, aims to up the ante for the dance genre, not just with its celeb-packed judging panel but by assembling a caliber of talent that truly represents the best of the best from every corner of the globe and covers all dance styles. “The absolute game-changer is the scoring system,” says Meredith Ahr, the president of Universal Television Alternative Studio, referencing how dancers are given points in five distinct
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Ahr believes that a fresh spin like the scoring mechanism on World of Dance is what can invigorate the format genre. “In this business, you can be lulled into thinking everything has been done before or that a genre of programming is well-worn and has exhausted its potential,” she says. But launching World of Dance has been “thrilling; it’s like digging for gold and then finding it!”
DANCE DIVAS
Keshet International is launching the new competition format Masters of Dance at MIPCOM.
categories—performance, technique, choreography, creativity and presentation—and must achieve a certain combined average from the three judges in order to move on. “It’s comparable to the Xs on Got Talent or to the spinning chairs on The Voice. It’s one of those once-in-a-decade moments in TV. It’s clear, it’s simple, it’s fair, and it helps the dancers. The competitors understand what they need to work on and what they need to focus on more. Even the judges were blown away by how [the scoring] instantly alleviated any concerns that they had about how they were going to judge, for example, a solo ballerina against a massive b-boy crew. It levels the playing field in a way that was exhilarating to watch as it came to life and we were shooting.”
Keshet International is hoping to strike gold with its new launch Masters of Dance, which aired this summer in Israel to ratings success. “We can never get tired of seeing exceptional talent on television,” says Keren Shahar, the company’s COO and president of distribution. “The singing space is extremely popular, but it’s also extremely crowded. Dance brings something new to the audience.” In addition to showcasing competitive performances, Masters of Dance focuses on four company directors, the “dance masters,” who form their groups and then go to battle. “There is fierce competition between the egos of these very talented dance masters, in addition to the natural competition between the dancers,” says Shahar. “It’s an all-access pass to go behind the scenes of the cutthroat world of dancing, which is very primal.” Whether it’s the incorporation of celebrities, augmented reality, an innovative scoring method or an added layer of competition, dance formats nowadays have got to come with a strong
World of Dance, from Universal Television Alternative Studio for NBC, features a celebrity-filled judging panel that includes Jennifer Lopez. 480 WORLD SCREEN 10/17
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USP in order to get time in the spotlight. CJ E&M, for example, has Dancing 9, which was the first original Korean format to feature a dance competition. “The uniqueness of this format is that the show starts with a competition of individual dancers from various fields—street, K-pop, dance sports, modern dance, ballet, b-boy, etc.—but proceeds and ends with a team competition of nine dancers in each group,” explains Jin Woo Hwang, the head of formats and global content development at CJ E&M. Hit the Stage, from the creators and producers of Dancing 9, features professional dance crews, led by popular K-pop idols, competing against each other. “Each episode has a central theme, and the idols and the professional dancers are responsible for directing—from the choreography to the makeup to the stage designs,” says Hwang. He adds that Hit the Stage was introduced in an effort to appeal more to the general public.
FEEL THE BEAT Mass-audience appeal is precisely what Zee Entertainment Enterprises has found with Dance India Dance, according to Sunita Uchil, the company’s chief business officer for international ad sales, global syndication and production. “Dance India Dance has been a cultural revolution in India,” she says. “It has really brought dance to the forefront. The charm of the format is that the common person gets a platform to be seen, and for his or her talent to be appreciated. It is about the middle-class household, the average audience out there.” Uchil says that Dance India Dance is all about giving hope to everyday people around the country. “It has made dance a real profession for many of them. The winners of Dance India Dance are now either choreographers or have parts in movies; they are all doing very well! Having celebrities is important; it gives you that spike and tentpole effect that you want from a particular TV-programming point of view. But ultimately, the success of any competition show depends on the talent. If you have the right talent, the stickiness will be there for the program.” Part of the appeal of Dance India Dance resides in its local flavor. With NBCUniversal’s World of Dance, though, the core
of the show is global by design. “We wanted to create an environment for the best dancers from around the world to come together and push themselves beyond what they thought was even possible, grow in ways that they couldn’t imagine and have an experience that will last them a lifetime,” says Ahr, likening the series to “the Olympics of dance.” By assembling the top-tier talent from a range of countries and dance styles, everybody is driven to up their game. After all, it’s a competition, not a showcase. But does a dance format have to be competition-based to be successful in today’s TV landscape? Not necessarily, says BBC Worldwide’s Connock. “If it’s prime-time, shiny-floor entertainment, they do tend to be. That competition element encourages the audience to vote for their favorite, and that means they’re going to be invested in the show and return week after week. But it’s not exclusive. There are plenty of other genres that have featured dance, like reality, factual entertainment, transformation and wish-fulfillment types of series.”
WHO’S THE BEST? In the case of Keshet International’s Masters of Dance, however, it is the parallel competitions between the dancers and the dance masters that drive the format. The show also features a range of different disciplines, which Shahar says helps to give it wide generational appeal. “From hip-hop to classical, modern to ballroom dancing, Masters of Dance gives you a real variety; there is truly something for everyone in every age group.” World of Dance is also open to all styles and the show’s audition process is designed to ensure diversity. In season one, contestants were divided into three different divisions: Junior, for 8- to 17-year-olds; Upper, for ages 18-plus; and Team, for groups of 5 or more dancers aged 18 and older. Ahr explains that everyone was so blown away by how competitive and strong the junior dancers performed that for season two the show is adding a “team” division for the younger set. Getting the audition process right is perhaps one of the most crucial elements for any dance competition on TV today. With regard to Dance India Dance, it is an essential format pillar that
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CJ E&M’s Dancing 9 begins as a battle between individual dancers and moves on to become a team competition.
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Zee’s Dance India Dance is centered on everyday people getting a platform to showcase their talent.
Zee asks international producers to respect when localizing the show. “We have some very strict rules about what kind of sample size has to be taken and how the selection has to be representative of the nation,” says Uchil. “There is a complete science to it! We have a dedicated team that does the scouting and they’re supposed to go to certain regions and select talent from those regions. That’s what the format asks you to do; it’s about getting the right talent from these regions that is reflective of the home country at large.”
CULTURAL SHIFTS “When we roll out formats to other territories, there are always little things to bear in mind for the cultural differences and tastes,” acknowledges Talpa’s Noest. “Sometimes that means adding a different color or tweaking the set, but in the case of Battle on the Dance Floor, the shrinking floor is the core of the format so we would never allow that to be changed.” BBC Worldwide is continuously making tweaks to Dancing with the Stars, and learning from what’s been successful in local versions is a key part of the process, says Connock. “Every year we hold a big event in London and invite the Dancing with the Stars producers from around the globe to share their knowledge and experience of making the show for their territory. They’ll talk through format innovations and twists. We also have a Dancing with the Stars microsite as an online tool that a producer can access to find out about every aspect of the show. There is constant evolution and creative investment from around the world.” Some of the international versions have included same-sex couples, partner switch-ups and a variety of different themed weeks. Another talking point when sharing expertise is the composition of the judging panel. “You need someone who has dance credibility; that’s key to the editorial and the enjoyment,” says Connock. “The audience needs to trust their judgment. They
might not agree with what that judge is saying, but they want to know that it’s coming from a place of experience. You also want them to have a big on-screen presence.” And there must be good chemistry between the judges, she adds. “Their dynamic is going to add another layer to the show, bringing in humor and drama. You need to balance the personalities; you want light and shade. It’s an important casting job.”
BEING JUDGY CJ E&M’s Hwang echoes the idea that while it’s important for judges to have charisma, they must also have the credibility to back it up. He adds that getting a big name attached, like Jennifer Lopez, makes it even sweeter. “But can we find a J-Lo in every country? It’s a dilemma.” Another quandary, according to Hwang, is how to manage the costs that come with this type of format. “Dance shows require bigger stages and sets and more high-tech equipment than singing shows. They also need mountains of practice and rehearsal time. That is why production costs are always a huge issue on dance shows. I have seen lots of cost-effective singing shows, but haven’t witnessed cost-effective dance shows.” He does point out that live tours can be a good added revenue stream, and taking some of the top dancers out on the road to perform for fans is another way to strengthen the brand. While Hwang and others emphatically agree that dance competitions are a hot commodity these days, there’s also an impetus to innovate. The shows that are making the most noise are the ones that are pushing the boundaries. “A really strong format with great production values and a team that’s keeping it fresh is going to have a long life,” says Connock. “When you’ve got amazing performances, plus journeys of transformation, it’s always going to find an audience. I don’t think dance as a genre is overcrowded; there’s room for everyone.”
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Banijay Rights’ Undressed.
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Kristin Brzoznowski explores the market for high-volume formats that can be broadcast Monday to Friday in daytime or access slots. o broadcaster can deny the allure of having a shiny-floor entertainment spectacle as an anchor for their weekly prime-time schedule—and most are willing to shell out for the hefty price for it. Budgets for daytime and access prime aren’t quite as generous, though, leaving buyers to look for cost-effective, high-volume programming to fill those slots. Formats that are stripped straight across the week, airing at the same time each day, can provide channels with the perfect solution, giving them a wealth of original content at a reasonable price point. “Stripped programming continues to be really successful in the current television landscape,” says Vasha Wallace, the executive VP of global acquisitions and development at FremantleMedia, which is home to such megahit strips as The Price Is Right, To Tell the Truth, Let’s Make a Deal and Family Feud. “We see strong demand for it all around the world.” Andrew Sime, the VP of formats at Banijay Rights, has seen the same. He believes that the recent rise in popularity for stripped formats might have to do with the fragmentation of the media landscape as well. “With the proliferation of platforms, channels have to do more with less. It’s harder for them to expect audiences to be familiar with the varying day-to-day schedules. When you’re a relatively small channel, it’s easier to make your mark by stripping key titles throughout the week so that your viewers always know exactly what they’re going to find when they come to you. They don’t have to worry about what day of the week it is; they know that at 7 o’clock they’ll find a certain program. That started with the cable channels. As
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that turned into a very successful marketing tactic and quite a successful way of building brand identity for a channel, some of the bigger terrestrial broadcasters have followed suit.” A strong seller from the Banijay Rights catalog, Don’t Forget the Lyrics! started off as a big, weekly, prime-time milliondollar game show when it launched some ten years ago. Air Productions has since reimagined it in France as a 30-minute daily game. “Now, at 7 p.m. every day on France 2, there is one episode and at 7:30 p.m. there is a follow-up episode,” explains Sime. “That is five days a week, sometimes even seven, throughout the year. It’s one of the most popular shows on France 2; they often get audiences of more than 3 million viewers. If you want to follow the winner and see them staying on to find out if they’ll get beaten, you can. It rewards committed viewing, but equally, you can dip in and out of it. There’s no prerequisite that you had to have watched the episode before.”
GAME TIME Game shows are, indeed, cited by many format distributors as a top genre when selling strips. “Game shows have the potential to work well on a daily basis in access prime,” says Amos Neumann, the COO of Armoza Formats. “They are strong enough and look good enough to be scheduled at 6 p.m. or 7 p.m., rather than 10 a.m. or 3 p.m. Still Standing is on air in Spain and has been there for five years now on a daily basis; it is doing magnificently well. It does the same in Italy on a daily basis.” “When it comes to access prime time, game shows are very much what channels are looking for,” agrees John Pollak, the president of worldwide television and international at Electus.
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KABO’s scriptedcomedy format Our Crazy Family has been a longrunning hit on M6 as a daily strip in access prime time.
KABO, though, has been stripping scripted comedies since the beginning of the company—and doing so very successfully. The flagship format Our Crazy Family just wrapped its sixth season and is stripped Monday to Friday in access prime time. “The ratings have increased every season,” notes Pouliot-Di Crescenzo. “A lot of countries are going for games that are stripped, or, in daytime, court shows that are stripped or scripted reality. For KABO and M6, which develop shows together, the idea was to do counterprogramming. The main channels, like TF1, have the news on [leading into prime time]. The idea was to counter-program with stripped sketch comedy produced as a halfhour. It has been very successful.” Pouliot-Di Crescenzo says that for Our Crazy Family, as well as other scripted KABO comedies, access prime time is ideal for stripped scheduling. “It’s popular for that demographic of moms making dinner at home since it’s the kind of programming the whole family can watch together.”
He points to Winsanity, which is going into its second season on GSN in the U.S. this fall, as one that fits the stripped programming model well. “We’ve had a lot of great traction on it internationally and have been able to launch it in a few markets recently. We’ve revamped the creative a bit in season two. We’ve turned it from a one-player game into a two-player PLAYING THE SLOTS game, and now it’s more of a competition between the two Armoza’s Neumann also points to access prime as the hot slot contestants. That has enhanced the show. I believe it’s what but says that it really depends on the type of show. “For daybuyers internationally will be looking for when it comes to their time, the content will be more lifestyle and be stripped on a potential needs.” day-to-day basis. The same show can air five times a week in Global Agency’s founder and CEO, Izzet Pinto, says that fordaytime without needing closure at the end of it. When you mats in the areas of cooking, style and dating do particularly have a larger audience, as you do in access prime, the demands well as strips. “Reality shows that have a theme of relationships are higher, so you have to provide them with a more distinctive or weddings work perfectly each day because it becomes like story throughout the week.” an unscripted telenovela,” he adds. Largely, though, strips can move around the schedule with a “If you look at our biggest sales, it has been the stripped great amount of flexibility. Hat Trick International, for example, programs,” Pinto says. “For example, one of Global has seen the format Dinner Date air in daytime, prime time and Agency’s biggest hits is Shopping Monsters, which is a stripped program. It has been selling for the last six years, and every year we have seen an increase in the number of territories and number of episodes. Stripped programs have been the best revenue-generating ones. If you look at the last 18 months, again it’s a stripped format, My Wife Rules, that is selling very well. It is an important type of format for us.” When you think about formats and the idea of stripping them in a schedule, it all started with the game show, according to Arabelle Pouliot-Di Crescenzo, the managing director at KABO International. “Game shows were in access prime, and the American broadcasters were doing it. They saw amazing success, so it went around the world,” dictating programming trends in many markets. Hat Trick’s game-show format Cheap Cheap Cheap can shoot multiple episodes in one day. 486 WORLD SCREEN 10/17
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Cooking shows, like FremantleMedia’s My Mom Cooks Better Than Yours—which originated in Spain—work well as strips. access prime time. The show, which combines the popular genres of cooking and dating, features standalone episodes, with new singles introduced in each. “Dinner Date doesn’t only play as a strip; it can play weekly as well,” says Sarah Tong, the company’s director of sales. For producers, it can pose a somewhat tricky twist to take a prime-time show and turn it into a strip—or vice versa. “It’s something we talk about a lot when we’re launching shows, in terms of the flexibility of the format,” says FremantleMedia’s Wallace. “Many formats do lend themselves to both. When you’re making something into a daily, though, what’s really important is that you can create a lot of volume. That volume has got to be cost-effective.” She cites as an example the show Who Lives Here?, which has been airing in Sweden for multiple seasons in prime time with a one-hour version. In each episode, five strangers tour each other’s homes together and try to work out who lives where. The format was licensed into Norway as a daily and received a more budget-friendly structure, with three people looking around four homes, one of which is a red herring. Wallace has also seen cases where a strip can move into prime time. Family Feud runs as a daily with everyday people playing for the prize pot, while the weekly primetime version features celebrities playing to have fun and win money for charity.
DOUBLE DUTY “In Portugal, they have a real history of doing dailies,” says Wallace. “Portugal is a small country; the broadcasters don’t have big budgets. So normally when they commission a show, they’ll have the daily version and then they have the big Friday night prime-time show. You get both—a daily series and a big event piece with whiz-and-bang entertainment and higher production values behind it.” KABO’s daily stripped Our Crazy Family format has also been taken into prime time. In addition to the daily accessprime show, which features short comedy sketches, there
are now hour-long episodes for peak slots that have a proper storyline with a beginning, middle and end. “It’s like an extension of the brand,” says Pouliot-Di Crescenzo. Broadcasters and audiences have really taken to this style of daily comedy as it’s “more modern” than a weekly sitcom, Pouliot-Di Crescenzo says. “You’re constantly checking in with these characters. It’s similar to binge-watching. These characters are very identifiable; they’re living a parallel life to yours. You can watch them every day. You may miss part of the story, but then you’re sucked right back into it the next day.”
TELL ME A STORY Richer storytelling is but one of the gifts that a stripped show affords. “When you do a strip, you can have more emotions, more details and way more stories, with many characters,” says Global Agency’s Pinto. “That’s why stripped programming works so well; people get hooked on the program.” And what broadcaster doesn’t covet viewer loyalty? “Once you have your audience coming on Monday, they want to see what happens on Tuesday, and they have to see the closure at the end of the week,” says Armoza’s Neumann. “It’s a captive audience; if they start, they want to finish.” Costs are certainly another key benefit, among a myriad of others, when it comes to daily strips. “It’s inexpensive compared to prime-time programming,” says Electus’s Pollak. “Being spread over as many episodes as a broadcaster can do, there are economies of scale that you can take advantage of. That’s probably the number one selling point for people on the financial side.” Banijay Rights’ Undressed format, which has been licensed into a slew of markets as a strip, is one that easily allows for multiple episodes to be filmed in one day. Same with Tipping Point, which has been a daily ratings hit in the U.K. “The production team is very experienced now after the many years of doing this, and they can produce a lot of episodes back to back,” says Sime. “You get savings in terms of the amount of time needed to have the crew present, as well as the host and
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Stripped formats have been among the best sellers for Global Agency, which is home to My Wife Rules.
contestants. You see savings in how much access you need to the studio and to equipment. The average cost per episode collapses if you can film in high volume like this.” Hat Trick’s new game-show format Cheap Cheap Cheap films an average of three episodes in a day, according to Tong. “With something like Win It Cook It, they were filming two a day,” she adds. “All your costs come down!”
MONEY MATTERS
has got to be a certain amount of familiarity. You’ve got to respect that structure. It’s not good enough to simply take a one-hour show and try to stretch content across five days.” Sime also cautions against scaling the production back too far. “While you are looking for an economical solution, there could also be a temptation to put subpar, lower-quality content out there. You’ve got to resist that urge. Even though it’s stripped, and it’s high volume, viewers have high expectations.” Global Agency’s Pinto has some other tips that producers should keep in mind when working on a stripped show. For one, he says, it is very important to leave a bit of curiosity in the finale of each episode so that viewers need to know what happens the following day. “Often, stripped programming will focus on different contestants each run, so you have to give an overview of the participants each day so that the viewers can get to know them, see which one they feel closest to and want to watch them the whole week. It’s all about the storytelling, and the drama should be produced very carefully.” Pinto says he’s seen growing interest for strips coming out of Central and Eastern Europe as of late, and that Latin America is in his sights. As LatAm viewers are already used to the daily viewing pattern of the telenovela, stripped formats should be a natural fit. Global Agency’s daily cooking competition My Wife Rules is going on air in Brazil, and Pinto believes that will help to spur other countries in the region to sign on as well. Electus’s Pollak names Australia as a country that has “mastered” this type of format scheduling. Indeed, MasterChef Australia airs five nights a week, from Sunday to Thursday, on Network Ten. My Kitchen Rules, which has seen upwards of 320 episodes on Seven Network, also does daily runs. “The Australians love stripped formats in prime time,” notes Hat Trick’s Tong, “whereas it would be very unusual in the U.K. to have a stripped format in that slot.” In surveying the global demand, FremantleMedia’s Wallace says that stripped formats are working in nearly every market currently. “It’s a very healthy business,” she says. “Strips deliver value for money to the broadcaster, and viewers really like these kinds of shows; they’re very responsive to them.”
FremantleMedia’s Wallace agrees that for a broadcaster, strips provide good value for their money. “It also delivers a lot for the brands that are working with the channels,” she says. Sponsorship and advertising propositions abound when you have a strong food-themed format on daily, for example. “Cooking can be fantastic as a strip, especially in shoulder-peak slots,” says Wallace. “If a viewer is at home during that time of day, often they’re looking after their children, cooking dinner, trying to tidy up the house—they are multitasking, and they have the television on, so they need something that’s quite accessible. It can’t be too overcomplicated in a way that something can be that you’d sit down to watch with a glass of wine at 9 o’clock in a much more civilized environment. Accessibility is really important in those slots, and you see that with cooking shows, game shows and reality shows.” Producers working on stripped formats also need to be sure that they’re putting together relatively uniform episodes, says Banijay’s Sime. “It’s hard if you have a Tuesday episode that is in some way structurally different from Game shows, such as Armoza Formats’ Only One Knows, are a popular genre to air as the Wednesday episode. There dailies across the week. 488 WORLD SCREEN 10/17
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Gordon
Ramsay Gordon Ramsay is a household name around the world. Renowned as a top chef, one of the few who has earned the coveted three Michelin stars (at his London flagship), he owns restaurants in the U.K., the U.S., Europe, the Middle East and Asia, and has lent his name to home and lifestyle products. He is perhaps best known for his TV shows, from Hell’s Kitchen to Kitchen Nightmares; from MasterChef to the endearing MasterChef Junior. Over the years, he has calibrated his television persona, transforming from the exigent perfectionist barking orders to more of a demanding cheerleader. He has also set up his own shingle, Studio Ramsay, which, as he tells TV Formats, he is keen to use to spot the next By Anna Carugati generation of talent. TV FORMATS: How involved are you in the casting of your shows? I imagine that is a fundamental component. RAMSAY: Yes, casting is fundamental. Casting is the heartbeat of any major show. The only one I never got involved with was Hell’s Kitchen because I never wanted to have preconceived ideas about the contestants coming into that arena to win a quarter of a million dollars, so I step out of that ring. But on Kitchen Nightmares, absolutely, and on MasterChef and MasterChef Junior it’s a huge part of my responsibility. I need to spot that vulnerability in those youngsters. I need to see that passion in the adult version of the show. I need to understand that it’s integrity [that motivates you]. Forget anything to do with Hollywood, and forget the words “TV fame.” I want to identify the DNA of what you’re about, and what this competition means to you first, from a chef’s point of view. I have 2,500 staff, globally. I can guarantee you, after being in a room with someone, I can pick up on that in 30 seconds. TV FORMATS: You mentioned MasterChef Junior; what are the challenges in working with children? RAMSAY: The challenge with working with children, for me, is the limited time you have with them because of their age. We cram so much into them. Their head teacher is gone, there’s no Mom and Dad, it’s just you and me, and we are on this incredible journey. Some days you’re going to love me, some days you’re going to hate me, and some days you’re going to question me. All I want is that every time we have a problem in this kitchen, I want to find a solution. That’s life. We’re going to go up, we’re going to go down, we’re going to hit adversity, but more importantly, we are going to get ourselves out of it. Even with ten minutes left to go on a Mystery Box Challenge, and you think it’s your last challenge cooking in this arena, I can guarantee you, you can come back strong and finish in the top three with ten minutes to go. So word of the day: Solution. Give me the solution; don’t give me the problem. That level of no
fear, that honest insight—I like it when I see little snippets of myself within their characters. I was never academically super strong. I struggled in English, math was okay, biology and chemistry [were] disasters for me. What got me through were sports and food. Every youngster peaks at a different age and the pressure on them today is all about their eating habits, and how adverse they are, and I suppose the complex they get by being slightly overweight. But it’s not their fault! It’s their bloody parents because they’re under the influence of their parents. So two things are happening: these kids are reeducating their parents, and these kids are finding confidence in areas that they’d never shown at school. No one had come at the top of their class in English and math. But this canvas for cooking and this amazing arena to show off and find gifts they never thought they had is right in front of them on a daily basis. That transformation is pretty extraordinary. TV FORMATS: Are there extra challenges involved in a live show like The F Word? RAMSAY: Yes and no. Every top chef in the country cooks live every night, so I’ve never had any issues with that. What it’s managed to do is confirm that we can cook live. More importantly, the talent we’re finding, these families, whether it’s military wives, the meatheads, school pride, there are some amazing communities and little ethnic groups out there who are just super talented. So I wanted to reposition cooking live on a network. Whether it’s Good Morning America or Today, you’ve got a three-minute segment to put [a dish] together quickly or else [Today co-host] Matt Lauer’s going to kick you in the ass! Me? I want to cook. I want to cook from raw ingredients. Chicken parm is chicken parm, and you’re going to see that transformation to give you hope to do it at home. That’s what The F Word has done, and more importantly, it has unearthed some incredible talent that had been a massive secret across this country.
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Culinary Genius, represented by all3media international, was produced for ITV by Studio Ramsay.
TV FORMATS: Tell us about Studio Ramsay. RAMSAY: Studio Ramsay is going to be a sort of hub for a new generation of young chefs, maître d’s, sommeliers, industry spokespersons, in terms of developing and creating new ideas, looking for tomorrow’s chefs. [We then want to] give them a platform, whether it’s through publishing, TV, marketing or social media. We have access to 20 million people across all our platforms, so it’s a great way to search for that kind of talent. We’re looking at a couple of scripted ideas. There’s so much drama involved in restaurants. I’ve grown up in them for the past 30 years. And we have a bit of a family business going on: Matilda, our youngest child, has her own show on CBBC, Matilda and the Ramsay Bunch. I look at the creative genius of producer Pat Llewellyn, an amazing lady who found the Two Fat Ladies, Jennifer Paterson and Clarissa Dickson Wright, back in the ’90s; Jamie Oliver for The Naked Chef, back in the late ’90s; and she found me. That’s the kind of talent I want to continue searching for through Studio Ramsay. TV FORMATS: Has Matilda sought your advice for any aspects of her show, or is she very much her own person? RAMSAY: For me, like with the juniors on MasterChef, I need to see attitude. I don’t have that overbearing control and say, Hey, look, Tilly, do this. Or she says, Dad, your food’s way too fussy, mine’s a lot simpler and where there’s simple food there are great flavors. OK, Matilda. So I tend to back off on that front. She’s 15, and she started as an 11-year-old, and she doesn’t quite understand how popular she’s become. She’s still hungry and determined— she still wants to be a doctor, she wants to be a dancer, and she wants to have a restaurant on the side of it, so I love that innocence. But we have managed to sow a lot of confidence in her, because whereby every other parent of millennials was buying their kids iPads and Xboxes, I bought my kids animals, from pigs to sheep to turkeys [so
that they would] understand that we don’t waste food. Rear them, nurse them, look after them, and then we’re going to cook them. TV FORMATS: Besides providing viewers with an hour of good fun, what else have you wanted your shows to offer? RAMSAY: If there’s any key messaging that I’d love to be pushed out it’s that cooking is fundamental and it’s educational. We do it three times a day, seven days a week. We need one good meal, so what’s at the end of the rainbow for me is to have some practical food and diet insight across every program in a way that you understand that cooking is educational. It’s something that we all must do, we all must learn, rather than getting to the age of 21 and having never boiled an egg before! TV FORMATS: What advice do you have for people who feel intimidated in the kitchen? RAMSAY: Understand the basics. When making a great pasta, do it yourself. Making fresh pasta is like making bread, there are never two that taste the same; like a risotto, there are never two that are the same. So keep it simple and the better the ingredients, the less you need to do to it. More importantly, I always [tell people] at the beginning of their journey: close your eyes for 30 seconds, taste and lock in that flavor. That was my ambition as a young 25-year-old, 25 years ago, when I sat outside MIPCOM on a boat as a private chef for Reg Grundy, one of the biggest TV moguls in the world, thinking, Christ, get this dinner party done and then I’m going to find the best restaurant in Cannes. I’d saved up my money, I get to the restaurant, no wine—the waiters hated me for not spending money on wine—but I wanted to taste the specialty of that chef, and lock in the flavor. We didn’t have [smartphones that were also] cameras then; I used to draw pictures on doilies, stick the doily in my pocket and then bolt out of the restaurant with all that knowledge!
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Rob Wade knows a lot about managing iconic non-scripted brands. Over the course of his 20-year career in music, variety, reality and live entertainment, he has worked on some of the world’s most successful formats, including Dancing with the Stars, The X Factor, America’s Got Talent and I’m a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!, among many others. Earlier this year, FOX tapped Wade as its new president of alternative entertainment and specials. In his role he inherited several successful long-running brands, including Hell’s Kitchen and MasterChef, but he is also eager to refresh the schedule with the best that the U.S. and international markets have to offer. As he tells TV Formats, Wade is feeling bullish about the global format landscape, expressing confidence that the elusive next big thing is just around the corner. TV FORMATS: Tell us about your acquisition of The Final Four format. What did you see in that idea that made you think it would work well for FOX? WADE: It’s a super clean format and it is incredibly engaging. What I love about it is that it starts where other music competitions usually end. You have a set of four very good, talented performers, and then people come in and audition in an attempt to dethrone them. That moment—at which they get the opportunity to not only have a sing-off with one of the four but also choose who that is—was very compelling. I’ve been doing these [talent] shows for a long time and watching them for a long time, and it felt like a genuinely fresh approach to the genre. Before FOX, I was developing shows, first at Syco, Simon Cowell’s company, and then at the BBC. I came up with a lot of shows myself and developed them. I’ve seen a lot of shows like this pitched. [The Final Four is] just unique. It immediately spoke to me. It’s funny, a journalist the other day asked me, Did you come in and just aim for a singing show? Genuinely, I didn’t come in thinking, I want a singing show. I’ve been looking at lots of buckets: singing, variety, game shows, social experiments, etc. But this was the first show that came to me that I just went, yeah, this is a great show. It could have been anything, but it happened to be a singing show. TV FORMATS: What excited you most about joining FOX? WADE: I’d been here for The X Factor and I’d worked with the team before. I found it to be an incredibly invigorating culture. It’s a place where you can take risks. It’s got a real pioneer spirit to it. The new additions to FOX since my time were Dana [Walden] and Gary [Newman, the chairmen and CEOs of Fox Television Group], and you look at their track record, they’re just phenomenal producers and incredibly talented executives. That got me excited. The other reason was, I’ve been showrunning and been on that side of the table for a long time. For me, this was an opportunity to try something different. There hasn’t been an unscripted hit for a while. I feel like now is the time. I’m quite optimistic about the business and that we’re on the verge of having another hit, and I hope it’s going to be here at FOX. There’s a new, younger generation of producers coming through who are very exciting, very creative, and I think technology has moved on now, which is always a
great entry point into new projects. I can feel a perfect storm coming, where this is the time. And I just enjoy doing this! [Laughs] TV FORMATS: Having worked on The X Factor and Dancing with the Stars, among others, you have lots of experience keeping brands fresh. Tell us about your approach to managing returning shows and maintaining their viewership. WADE: The bottom line is, it’s hard work. And you have to be innovative, you have to be creative, you have to be willing to take risks to move on, but you also have to be cognizant that there’s a reason why people love these formats. What you’re doing is a constant tweaking of the format, moving it forward, and hoping that you are adding value to the show. If you wait to react to a reduction in the audience before you make your changes, that’s fatal. You need to be ahead of that. You can’t be reactive; you have to be proactive in your producing. TV FORMATS: How much can you change a show before you start moving away from the DNA of the original format? WADE: It depends on the format, quite frankly. When I was doing America’s Got Talent, it was the first season in America when we tried the Golden Buzzer, which was a great little format tweak. On Dancing with the Stars, Conrad Green and I made a lot of changes to the format very early on because it felt like it needed them. Partly it was out of necessity. You’re given a schedule—ten two-hour episodes or eight two-hours, two 90-minutes and an hour—and you have to make that time work. So you have to be creative about how you fill your time. We made some pretty big changes to that show and they worked. That’s what you’re paid to do as a producer or an executive—judge how to move formats onward, to refract them, make them fresh, but not alienate your viewer. That’s the skill. TV FORMATS: Beat Shazam was a big success for you this summer. Why do you think it resonated so well with the FOX audience? WADE: FOX does music brilliantly—look at the legacy of Empire, Star, American Idol. We’re very good in that space and our viewers like it. Jamie Foxx is a phenomenal talent, and Jeff Apploff and Mark Burnett are great producers. We came up with a format that is just super clean. It’s got big prize money and high stakes, so it’s very broadcast. And obviously we partnered with Shazam, and the play-alongat-home aspect is great fun. In this era of multiplatform content, having that partnership has been great. There are various measures of the success of a television show, but I’m old school. My judgment of the success of a television show that I’m working on is how much my mother talks to me about it. [Laughs] I’m joking. My judgment honestly is how many people come up to me anecdotally and talk about it. I was talking to a woman at a party and she said, What do you do? I said I work at FOX. She said, What shows are on FOX? And I said, Beat Shazam…. She said, That’s amazing, yesterday my 9-year-old had a Beat Shazam birthday party! Hearing stuff like that makes me so excited.
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Beat Shazam, hosted by Jamie Foxx and based on the popular musicidentification app, was a big success for FOX this summer.
That’s why I’m in this business. It’s that moment where culture meets television, and you go out of the linear broadcast and become part of the vernacular. That’s why Beat Shazam is successful—it immediately, after one season, is already becoming part of the vernacular. It’s living outside of its broadcast hour. TV FORMATS: How important is at-home interactivity with a show? WADE: I can’t [overstate] how important that is for all the big competition shows and the big reality shows. If you look at any of the big successful shows, they all have great social footprints and the ability to live on other platforms. It’s still very difficult to quantify the reach of a show, but you know when you’re doing the right thing. You have to have the television show living on different platforms, living on social media, living in the press. It helps from a marketing perspective. And it helps that FOX has the largest social footprint of all the networks. That means we live outside of those broadcast hours. TV FORMATS: Are you developing concepts internally that your distribution colleagues can sell globally as formats, or are you more focused on what’s available on the global market? WADE: I’m from the creative part of the business, and the open market is how you get the greatest success. We want to attract the best producers and the best talent to FOX. And to do that, we are open to all American producers and international producers to come here and sell to us. The Four is [adapted from the] Armoza format from Israel, and we’ve partnered them with ITV Entertainment in the U.S. Every show is different. Some are existing IP, some are brand-new IP, some are paper formats, some are from a pilot, some might be from a series abroad. We’re very open to all of those things. We do have internal ideas, but when we have an internal idea we give it to someone [to produce]. So let’s say I wanted to come up with a show that was about dating, for example. If I had a hook that I really liked, I would say, what about these production companies, and we’d do a deal with them and they’d go off and develop it and see if we can make it into a series. That’s our method.
TV FORMATS: You rebooted Love Connection this year. Are there other classic properties you’re looking at reviving? And what’s the key to successfully bringing back a known, loved brand? WADE: We’re looking at everything. I came in here and I felt like we had to adjust our programming strategy in unscripted to a degree. What happened with Love Connection was that it got a bit of an overhaul. If you’re going to buy an older format that you want to survive beyond one season, you have to refresh it. That’s one thing I’ve noticed over here and in the U.K.—sometimes when you buy existing IP, it burns bright at the beginning because there’s a lot of sentiment from the viewers who want to see it coming back. So they’ll watch it a lot in that first series, but if it’s not good enough you’ll see a big drop off, in particular in the second season. So you need to choose brands you can refresh, but you also need to leave time for brands to come back. It’s not a good idea to bring a brand back too quickly. You need to make sure they’ve had enough time to rest before they come back. TV FORMATS: Other than The Four, what’s on your upcoming slate? WADE: We are picking up Love Connection for season two. I’m excited by a lot of our shows in development. As a producer, you need to get your ducks in a row on shows. You need to make sure you’ve got a clear plan for them. We are developing a lot of stuff in broad, original, fun spaces. Whether it’s dance, social experiment, variety or dating, we’ve got a few things in the pipeline that are interesting. I arrived [at FOX] at the beginning of April and we had a few pitches—The Four was one of the first that came in—and then it went a little bit quiet in the summer. But in the last couple of weeks I’ve had some really good stuff coming in. I’m looking for big things. I’m a producer and your job as a producer is to take ideas and make them bigger. You usually see something in everything, to a degree. But every so often, something comes through and you’re just like, wow, that’s different and that’s big and that’s exciting. I’ve seen a couple of those in the last few weeks.
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Barlow Three months before the official opening of the musical The Band, the show had already raked in £10 million in ticket sales. The anticipation is a testament to the continued popularity of the British pop act Take That, whose songs are featured in the musical. Naturally, the stage show required a boy band, so Take That’s own Gary Barlow teamed with Guy Freeman, BBC Studios’ editor for formats and special events, to conceive a new talent competition. Let It Shine, which aired on BBC One earlier this year, auditioned thousands of aspiring singers, placing the most talented into boy bands that then competed for the audience’s votes. BBC Worldwide is now shopping the concept to broadcasters across the globe eager for a new spin on the perennially popular talent-competition format. As Barlow tells TV Formats, his firsthand experience as a member of a boy band played a major role in how the format was devised. And the pop icon is no stranger to talent competitions—at age 15 he took part in a song contest hosted by the BBC One program Pebble Mill at One, and he spent several seasons as the head judge on The X Factor in the U.K. TV FORMATS: Where did the idea for Let It Shine come from? BARLOW: Well, me and Guy [Freeman] had worked together on quite a few TV shows over the years. I think we did our first show together in 1993. We’ve known each other a long time! Guy paid me a visit at my studio, and we were chatting about TV and ideas for TV and what I wanted to do next, really. I was ready to go back into TV. I’d done The X Factor for three years, I enjoyed that, but I was ready to do something else. And at that time I was in the middle of trying to come up with a musical featuring all the music from Take That, and I knew I needed a band to be in this musical. So I just threw it in, right at the end of the conversation: “Just so you know, I am looking for a band, wouldn’t it be great if we could talent search it?” And Guy said straightaway, let’s try and come up with a format around that, a talent-search format that can put bands together, specifically designed for individual people to audition for us and to then form them into bands.
experience but also had pop experience. That’s not everybody, and those two worlds don’t often meet. But this is a show featuring the music of Take That, so [Australian singer] Dannii Minogue fit perfectly in that world. She’s been in musicals herself, she’s been a pop artist herself, she’d had the credentials of being involved in talent shows for many years. What that skill brings is the ability to look at and see people who have a small flame of potential. Spotting that potential is very important. Martin Kemp [from Spandau Ballet] was my boy band era. I wanted someone who had been part of that band formation and he worked great. Amber [Riley, of Glee fame] was one of our early judges and she comes with TV and musicals experience, and she’s an amazing singer. It’s about that really—people who aren’t just talking about it, but people who’ve done it, who’ve been there and done it. So the audience can watch and go, actually, yes, they do know what they’re talking about because we’ve seen them do it.
TV FORMATS: What were you looking for as you put the panel of judges together? BARLOW: For this particular project it was putting a band in a musical, so I wanted people who had musical
TV FORMATS: You took part in a talent competition yourself, didn’t you? BARLOW: I was in a few very early on. I got my first job through a talent competition in a local club. Honestly, 10/17 WORLD SCREEN 499
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every time you go on TV, whether it’s singing or talking, people are judging you all the time. It’s something that’s continuous. I try to say this as these [Let It Shine competitors] leave the show—this doesn’t end here, the judging doesn’t end, it gets worse, actually. Be ready for that. That’s what you do. That’s part of the gamble of being in this business, but that’s the thrill of it as well. The whole thing for me is about what happens when the competition ends, when the entertainment ends. What happens to the people from that point? That’s why I feel very good about our show. We have unearthed brilliant talent. They have a job for the next year, and a skill that they can use, or not, for the rest of their lives. That makes me feel good about it.
Following its broadcast on BBC One, Let It Shine is being offered as a format by BBC Worldwide.
By Mansha Daswani As the editor for formats and special events at BBC Studios, veteran live entertainment producer Guy Freeman worked with Gary Barlow to come up with the format structure for Let It Shine. He shares with TV Formats his thoughts on why the concept stands out from the talent-competition pack and weighs in on the enduring importance of family-friendly, prime-time entertainment shows. TV FORMATS: How did you take Gary’s idea and begin developing the format pillars for Let It Shine? FREEMAN: We have a format-development team at BBC Studios, and we sat down and started thrashing through the details of it. And then we’d go to Gary and say, this is where we’re at, this is what we’re thinking, and we’d toss it around a bit and then go back and work on it. The unique aspect of five stars as a rating system [each judge can award a contestant up to five stars] was in quite early on as something we could work with, and we refined that system. We didn’t want to start with a large pool of people and whittle it down to one band. Because of Gary’s experience of being in a band, we wanted to get them into bands quite early on so they could start to form those internal bonds. We’d then put them in a battle of the bands in our live shows. That was the process that kept to-ing and fro-ing, and it got to a point where we took it to the channel and they went, tick, let’s make it! We were auditioning all [of last] summer and recorded half the shows in the autumn, and were on the air at the beginning of this year. We’re now looking at how it could work in other territories and how a second series could work in the U.K. TV FORMATS: What makes the show unique in a crowded landscape of talent formats?
FREEMAN: In the audition process, we were keen to avoid any of the tropes that you see in other talent shows. We aren’t about big, long backstories and sob stories. We do that with only a few contestants, and we do it in a unique way, where you see people walk through almost this tunnel of their life for 30 seconds before they walk on stage. The judges themselves, their only aim is to bring out the best in someone. So they aren’t battling or arguing or bickering. They all speak with credibility, they speak with warmth and honesty at the same time. We’re not trying to give people false hope—it’s a very authentic process. If you saw people with potential, you marked them, if you didn’t, they were off. We didn’t put people on that stage who would be ridiculed for being bad. We put people on there who we thought were genuinely going to be good, and it was up to the judges to see if they thought they had the potential. The other unique thing is we have this middle stage where once we’ve got these individuals, we put them into rough groupings and make them work with a leading artist. They almost become a cast or an ensemble, and they have to play second fiddle to somebody else standing at the front. That came partly from one thing Gary told me way back about the very early years [of his career]. He learned so much from standing behind other people and watching other people on stage. That’s a really important part of the authentic process of learning from experienced people. We tried to put that into the format. And then once they are in bands, they’re in battle with each other. There’s a nice little twist where, from the bottom two bands in the public vote, the judges can save half of [the contestants] but not necessarily all from the same band. TV FORMATS: With drama taking so much of the spotlight these days, do you think people sometimes forget the value of live, familyfriendly, Saturday night shows? FREEMAN: We certainly don’t forget it! It’s our primary focus. But it’s a good point. Good entertainment is something that the whole family can sit down together to watch and share. What we tried to do with this show was give people a judging panel that a huge chunk of the audience would know, new talent that they could enjoy for the first time, and a pair of amazing hosts, Graham Norton and Mel Giedroyc, who were fantastic. We tried to create a world that people would want to feel a part of and get into. You’re right, it is often overlooked, but when it works it can be magical.
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