C21October 2020 - Formats

Formats Everything about content

Mipcom Online+ 2020

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Netflix reveals ambitions for unscripted

Dive into data: South Korea’s export figures

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TF1 explores District Z in formats hunt

PLUS: ITV Studios focuses on Covid-proof formats – 17 Remy Blumenfeld calls for reinvention – 18 | Views & more…

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SCHEDULE WATCH: Netflix

Channel 21 International | Mipcom Online+ 2020

Off-the-wall Netflix format Floor Is Lava

Putting on a game face

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etflix’s push into entertainment formats may not have yielded hits on the same level as the global streamer’s scripted efforts yet, but it could only be a matter of time before the streamer finds its game or talent show equivalent to Stranger Things and Tiger King.

Nathaniel Grouille, US-based director of unscripted originals at Netflix, and Sean Hancock, director of unscripted originals and acquisitions, put out the call for “zeitgeisty hits” during the streamer’s session at the recent virtual Edinburgh Television Festival.

The duo also reiterated the streamer’s preference for global rights to formats, with Grouille telling potential pitchers to think of the streamer as akin to a major market like Mipcom, as a place they can go to get their formats remade around the world.

Towards the top of Netflix’s unscripted shopping list are a big gameshow, a talent/singing show and a dance show, says Grouille, who joined from the commercial arm of the BBC in 2016 to oversee its growing unscripted slate.

Since then, Netflix has commissioned an array of unscripted formats and seen its fair share of modest hits and total misses, which nonetheless mark the streamer out as a place for fairly wacky ideas.

Netflix is seeking ambitious unscripted projects such as entertainment formats with mass appeal, particularly talent and gameshows.

By Nico Franks

Grouille says the streamer has systematically been taking one area of unscripted at a time, making a few bets in each of those spaces and then focusing its efforts where it has seen success.

“We’ve been through docuseries, crime, game, all sorts of different things. We’ve reached a point now where we feel very confident in unscripted and reality in general.

We’re poised to move forward in quite an exciting way,” he says.

The streamer is looking for unscripted shows with simple hooks and “clarity of proposition,” so that, in the couple of seconds a subscriber takes to scroll through Netflix, a new show can grab their attention.

Grouille doesn’t want producers to pitch with Covid-19 in mind, saying: “We’re keen for people to u

“

We’ve been through docuseries, crime, game, all sorts of different things.

We’ve reached a point now where we feel very confident in unscripted and reality in general.

Nathaniel Grouille Netflix

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SCHEDULE WATCH: Netflix

Channel 21 International | Mipcom Online+ 2020

keep thinking big and not to lean into pandemic-style programming. We’re going to come through this, so it’s not changed what we’ll commission.

“It’s maybe slowed our decision-making ever so slightly, but we’re still commissioning big ideas, often when not really knowing how we’re going to achieve them. But we don’t want Covid to limit people’s imaginations.”

Discussing returning to production during the pandemic, Grouille says Netflix has not had to “rush” into resuming shooting because it is not bound by a linear schedule that it needs to fill.

“We’re slowly returning to production in many areas and finding protocols that work, be they grand bubbles or aggressive testing regimes. We’ve perhaps been a little more cautious than our peers, in that we’re not driven by a schedule. We don’t have to rush or be the first mover.

If we can build up systems that get it right, we can catch up slowly rather than rushing and being foolhardy,” says Grouille.

The exec hints the streamer is looking for a distinctive format in the vein of Big Brother or Survivor, both of which radically changed the formats industry and remain on air in numerous markets.

The streamer has identified the UK as a key breeding ground for new ideas, hiring UK-based unscripted execs Daisy Lilley and Ben Kelly in the past year and giving them the power to greenlight shows.

Hancock, who joined Netflix from Fremantle in 2017, adds the streamer has shown it is prepared to take unscripted risks, with zany formats such as Floor Is Lava, and it is now looking specifically for a family-skewing hit.

“We probably haven’t done enough family entertainment yet. That’s where you get the really big, culturally zeitgeisty hits,” says Hancock.

However, Grouille emphasises the streamer is not just looking to ape existing unscripted hits, just on a bigger scale: “When we say we want big ideas, we’re not saying we want Dancing With the Stars but with more stars and more dancing. And we’re not looking for shows that are mean or negative, even though they can sometimes really bring people in.”

And just because something doesn’t work on linear doesn’t mean it won’t work on Netflix, says Hancock, with the streamer now thinking more and more carefully about how it launches its unscripted formats.

Episodes of Netflix’s reality dating format Too Hot To Handle, from Fremantle-owned Talkback, were released over the course of a month this summer, with Grouille observing this helped build anticipation and a conversation around the show on social media.

Furthermore, entertainment formats that have storylines that carry the audience through the series, just like they do in a drama, are essential to keeping viewers hooked to a show – particularly when there’s so much choice available not only on Netflix, but all the other platforms and channels.

There is a trend emerging on Netflix where originals sometimes struggle to reach their third season, with some arguing this is so the streamer can allocate resources to a new title and ensure subscribers feel like they are being offered a steady flow of new shows.

Perhaps with this in mind, Hancock says for a new unscripted show to survive on Netflix, it will likely require more changes season after season to keep it fresh than it would if it were on linear TV.

“It’s a competitive landscape, so we’ve got to give the viewer a really good reason to come back. We’re releasing so much, so there is that sense of ‘what’s new?’ We absolutely want shows to run for a long time but they’ll probably change more over the seasons than on linear.”

In terms of those aforementioned global deals, Grouille says there are “financial incentives” for producers and distributors to doing them with the streamer, which is increasingly looking to take all rights off the table when it commissions a show.

“We might have conversations but we’re not looking to snipe off just a few territories here and there. Our preference is for global rights, but we’re not like a US network where there is no upside,” says Grouille.

Netflix has also seen success rebooting existing IP and giving it a modern twist, such as with Queer Eye, and Hancock says it was a good strategy while it “found its feet” in unscripted. But such deals will probably be seen less commonly from Netflix in future, according to Hancock.

The streamer sometimes commissions one version

of a format and sends it around the world and other times orders numerous versions of a format for multiple countries, as it did with social media-based reality show The Circle in France, Brazil and the US. “Sometimes we’ll wait to see how a show does in English-speaking territories, and then if our colleagues around the world really like it, they’ll do their versions as well,” says Grouille.

In the case of The Circle, Channel 4 in the UK took the initial punt on the new show – or as Grouille cheekily puts it, “made us a pilot” – and it was all set to launch on the international market at Mipcom in 2018, before Netflix swooped in and took global rights.

Since then, Netflix has made steady progress in the unscripted space – particularly when it comes to its original docuseries. And as the Tiger King phenomenon highlighted at the beginning of lockdown, the streamer has an almost unrivalled ability to strike – or even create – the zeitgeist.

Netflix’s reality dating format Too Hot To Handle from Talkback

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ANALYTICS: South Korea

Channel 21 International | Mipcom Online+ 2020

The numbers behind the Korean wave As South Korea celebrates being Country of Honour at the online version of Mipcom in October, Ed Waller casts an eye over the country’s content export figures.

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here’s no denying the impact South Korean programmes and formats have been making on the global market over the past few years. The Good Doctor, The Masked Singer, I Can See Your Voice… The list is quite a long one.

A dive into the data reveals the numbers behind that growth but also some other interesting trends emerging from the Korean Wave that now seems to be lapping on the shores of North America and Europe.

According to data from research outfit The WIT, in 2018 South Korea was responsible for 2.3% of all unscripted formats that were adapted in at least one other country, in joint 10th place alongside Norway.

In 2019 – the year The Masked Singer went global – South Korea climbed to fifth place, accounting for 4.4% of all travelling unscripted formats that year, overtaking Spain, Belgium, Germany, Israel and Sweden along the way. Data up to July this year has South Korea in sixth place with 3.1%, equal with Japan.

Bringing in some data from cultural export agency Kocca, we can see exports of Korean TV content have been on an unsteady rise over the past few years, with a sizeable dip in 2017’s figures after China banned Korean content the previous year.

Total exports of TV content, including formats and DVDs, stood at US$309m in 2013, rose to US$336m in 2014, dipped to US$320 the following year and jumped to US$411.2m for 2016. After the China ban, the figures tumbled to US$362.4m for 2017 then soared to US$478.4m for 2018, the latest year for Kocca data.

Breaking out the data for formats over the same period, the export figures grow from US$3.4m in 2013 to US$8.7m in 2014 then, during the China boom, enjoy a steep rise to US$39m in 2015 and US$54.9m in 2016, before dropping to US$8.8m

and US$9.9m for 2017 and 2019 after the fall-out with Beijing.

The Kocca data shows the exporters of K-content are also changing.

Back in 2016, export figures were dominated by the distribution arms of terrestrial broadcasters MBC, KBS and SBS. In 2016, for example, the terrestrials accounted for US$278.5m (67.7%) of the total US$411.2m broadcast content exports for that year. The following year, that figure had fallen to US$174.4m (48.1%) of the US$362.4m total, and by 2018 it was US$171.3m (35.8%) of the US$478.4m total.

By contrast, export figures for the cable and satellite firms such as CJ ENM and JTBC spiked. In 2016, this sector accounted for just US$68.8m (16.7%) of total broadcast content exports, rising to US$111.2m (30.6%) in 2017. By 2018, the figure had jumped to US$155.5m (32.5%), reversing the decline of the terrestrials.

Another trend is revealed by the data: the growth of the indie TV prodco. A few Korean prodcos, such as Pan Entertainment, have been able to retain rights to their content and are doing international deals themselves.

In 2016, these indie prodcos accounted for US$63.9m (15.5%) of total broadcast content exports, with that figure rising to US$76.8m (21.2%) in 2017 and leaping to US$155.5m (31.7%) in 2018. South Korean nonterrestrials and indie prodcos seem to be on a growth curve in content exports at the expense of terrestrials.

The decline in terrestrial exports can be partly explained by the China ban but also perhaps because the international market wants the kind of content produced by the relatively regulation-free cabsat companies.

It’s also worth pointing out that the Kocca data is from before The Masked Singer went global so the figures for 2019 will skew towards the terrestrials since that show is from MBC.

South Korean programme exports (US$m) 600

478

500

411 400

309

336

3.4

8.7

2013

2014

362

320

300 200 100

39

54.9

2015

2016

Total programme sales

8.8

9.9

2017

2018

Format sales

Source: Kocca

Which countries are selling formats?

UK

US

NL

FR

DE

BE

IL

ES

SE

KR

NO

TR

JP

AU

RoW

100%

23.1

80%

60%

2.3 2.3 2.6 2.6 2.6 3.4 3.9 4.9 7

40%

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21.7

2.4 4.4 2.4 3 3.8 3.3

2.6 3.1 2.1 3.1 2.1 2.1 2.6 4.6 2.1

4.7 7.1

18.3

6.2

15.4

19.8

20% 25.5

2018 Source: The WIT

29.6

2019

32.3

2020 (up to July)

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FORMAT RIGHTS AVAIL ABLE Americas

EMEA

Asia pacific

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thierry.raymaekers@insight.tv +86 135 0117 9215

SCHEDULE WATCH: TF1

Channel 21 International | Mipcom Online+ 2020

TF1 has high hopes for District Z

Exploring a new district France’s leading freeto-air broadcaster TF1 remains on the lookout for unscripted entertainment formats as it readies its latest ambitious primetime original.

By Gün Akyuz

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F1 Group’s head of content development, Julien Degroote, believes its latest primetime entertainment format, District Z, will take the broadcaster into a new unscripted space.

The zombie-themed adventure-entertainment gameshow, a co-development between TF1 and prodco Satisfaction that took more than two years to create, is being lined up as flagship family channel TF1’s next major offering.

It is one of a number of headline entertainment shows TF1 has in the pipeline for the 2020/21 season, including the recently launched 21st season of Survivor (titled KohLanta in France) and returning seasons of The Voice, The Voice Kids and The Masked Singer. Ninja Warrior was set to start shooting in August – postponed from March – and there’s also a new season of Dancing With The Stars.

“Despite the pandemic, there are no big changes in our unscripted line-up or our strategy,” says Degroote. “But we can feel an acceleration in demand for positive and optimistic shows, family co-viewing and shows generating heroes.” TF1 Group leads in France’s key commercial 25-

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50 demo, while its overall share of viewing stands at more than 30% of the market, with flagship TF1 accounting for more than 20% and its suite of DTT channels for 10%.

Degroote oversees content development for TF1 Group’s channels in three main areas. He commissions and oversees all new unscripted formats across entertainment and factual entertainment. He is also responsible for overseeing the creation of original IP, both in-house developments with his team and co-developments with external producers. A number of these originals have launched as daily access primetime and primetime shows.

The third area is searching for foreign scripted series formats to adapt locally – the latest being UK crime drama Marcella – and acquiring finished shows to air on the group’s DTT channels. Among the latter shows is Fixer Upper, which airs as Total Rénovation over on TFX and is a big hit for the younger-skewing DTT channel.

Degroote emphasises that TF1 is keen to continue its commitment to launching entertainment formats, both established shows with strong track records and paper formats, local or international.

“I would say that, as a leader, we owe it to ourselves to offer our viewers the best formats and the best programmes,” says the exec.

“It could be international formats, it could be paper formats. Our ambition is to test at least one new major primetime franchise each year to enrich our line-up.”

For the 2020/21 season, that task u

Despite the pandemic, there are no big changes in our unscripted line-up or our strategy. But we can feel an acceleration in demand for positive and optimistic shows, family co-viewing and shows generating heroes.

Julien Degroote TF1 Group

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SCHEDULE WATCH: TF1

Channel 21 International | Mipcom Online+ 2020

Docu-reality show Familles Nombreuses: La Vie en XXL (Large Families: Life in XXL)

falls to local format District Z. Last year it was The Masked Singer, while releases in recent years have included The Wall and Ninja Warrior.

Degroote says risk-taking had not necessarily been in TF1 Group’s DNA before the arrival of president Gilles Pelisson and Ara Aprikian, CEO of TV and content activities.

“They changed that state of mind and encouraged us to take risks in order to increase, year after year, the number of our successful brands,” he notes.

The exec says this has effectively given him and his department carte blanche to innovate.

TF1 tests many more original formats than it gets credit for, Degroote reveals, adding that since September 2017 the group has produced 23 paper formats, either as codevelopments or in-house developments. The latest is access primetime in-house docu-reality format Familles Nombreuses: La Vie en XXL (Large Families: Life in XXL), while recent primetime shows include The Tourists (Les Touristes) and Banijay’s Stars on the Rocks.

“So yes, we are open to paper formats and we are open to taking risks, because even if we lead the market – and, of course, every night we want to win the battle of the ratings – it’s our mission to innovate, to offer new content to our viewers,” Degroote says. “Today, the world of content is very competitive, with M6, with public service broadcasting in France, with Netflix, so we have to innovate.”

Flagship channel TF1 fields two weekly primetime entertainment slots on Fridays and Saturdays, both key evenings for advertisers, housing two-hour shows from 21.00.

Its line-up also includes two key daily access primetime slots, for factual entertainment shows and, occasionally, gameshows.

“In primetime on TF1, our strategy is to get all the best international formats,” says Degroote, listing shows such as The Voice, The Voice Kids, Survivor, Dancing with the Stars, Ninja Warrior and last year’s launch The Masked Singer.

This summer saw it successfully debut Turkish firm Global Agency’s format Is That Really Your Voice? under the local title Good Singers. Two episodes were made, airing in July and August and hitting a 29.8% share, making it a summer hit.

Degroote says the success of TF1’s French adaptation of The Masked Singer, the channel’s biggest entertainment hit in two years, made it easier for him to sell Good Singers to his boss. Moreover, the new format proved easy to produce remotely under Covid-19 restrictions.

“When we decided to commission Good Singers, it was

“

We are open to because last fall we had great success with the first season of The Masked Singer. So, we thought it could be relevant paper formats and for us to move forward on a new format with guessing-game we are open to taking elements,” says Degroote. risks, because even if we Global Agency is currently embroiled in a copycat row over the format with South Korea’s CJ ENM, which has lead the market – and, accused the Turkish company of copying its own singing of course, every night we entertainment show I Can See Your Voice. Asked about the want to win the battle issue, Degroote would only say: “I’ve known Is That Really of the ratings – it’s our Your Voice?, the Global Agency format, for a long time.” mission to innovate, to TF1 is also behind a number of French formats, such as Satisfaction’s established show Anything Goes and the offer new content to our more recent Vivendi format The Secret Song (La Chanson viewers.

Secrète), created by DMLSTV. TF1’s access primetime zone is also key to the channel’s Julien Degroote performance. The strip has housed local adaptations of UK TF1 Group formats such as Four Weddings and Four in a Bed, and this summer successfully launched Large Families: Life in XXL, with a second season already commissioned.

“This timeslot in access primetime is key for us and we have been willing to take risks there,” says Degroote, whose team has created six original formats, three of them running for three seasons and still in production. These include holiday competition Les Plus Belles Vacances (Perfect Vacation Booking), which has since been adapted in Italy, and My Best Christmas Ever, which has also been adapted in the Netherlands and Germany.

As well as aiming to secure the best international formats, Degroote says TF1 wants “original, totally new ideas,” highlighting District Z, a paper format, as an example. “It’s totally different from a big shiny-floor studio show, or from Vivendi format The Secret Song (La Survivor, so it’s a new area we’re going to explore,” u Chanson Secrète)

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SCHEDULE WATCH: TF1

he says. In a similar vein, he adds: “Four years ago when we decided to commission Ninja Warrior, it was totally new compared with the line-up back in its time.”

District Z was originally commissioned two years ago “to enrich TF1’s offer with a new adventure gameshow targeting a younger audience – kids, teens, young adults – but also their parents,” says Degroote.

Each episode of the five-part, two-hour format follows five A-list celebrities as they take on a range of indoor and outdoor challenges to win money for charity. The challenges take place in a world that Degroote describes as “the ultimate escape game,” with references to video games, drama series like The Walking Dead and unscripted shows Fear Factor, yet suited to a family audience.

The show was shot on a 10-acre site, which Degroote says is the largest filming location he has seen in his career.

It also deployed 50 cameras and used facilities belonging to adjoining theme park Parc Astérix, just outside Paris, for the production.

“We created a theme park, a complete world, with creatures and zombies and amazing challenges,” he adds, describing the show as being “like a roller-coaster ride with a lot of emotions.”

District Z’s host is Denis Brogniart, whose association with the French Survivor and Ninja Warrior will help promote the new show, according to Degroote.

Originally due to be filmed last March in time for its unveiling at MipTV, the production was delayed by the pandemic until July, but Degroote says conversations with interested international parties are already underway.

The filming site is also being promoted as a potential international production hub.

“From the beginning, the project and its location have been thought of as becoming a hub able to welcome all types of producers and broadcasters,” says Degroote, adding that the show has already received a lot of interest form across Europe and the US. “I’m sure for TF1 it will be our new big hit, and it will be the biggest new format we’re going to launch next season,” he says. A trailer for the show aired in July during the halftime break in the Champions League soccer final between Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain, seen by 11 million viewers. “People responded very well because they thought it seemed like something very original and wanted to know more about it,” says Degroote.

District Z is distributed by Sony, in a partnership formed following Satisfaction Group’s acquisition of Sony Pictures Television Production France this summer.

If TF1’s entertainment output hasn’t been unduly affected by the pandemic so far, Degroote says this could change for 2021/22 if content supply chains are hit.

The flagship channel already had two big entertainment shows, The Voice and Survivor, on air when the pandemic struck, while others were at the editing stage. The Voice and Survivor both had their run times halved to one hour to maintain their presence throughout the spring.

Once lockdown ended in France on May 11, productions were able to start resuming, including shiny-floor shows like Good Singers, season two of The Masked Singer and the upcoming District Z. Degroote says forecasts of a possible second wave of the pandemic could change TF1’s strategy. “It will depend on the length of the crisis. For the moment, we haven’t been affected too much because programmes were already in production. But if the crisis is long, of course it will affect the way of thinking about the upcoming shows, and we

Channel 21 International | Mipcom Online+ 2020

will probably focus on easy-to-make productions that we can make with fewer people on stage, such as primetime gameshows.”

In TF1’s inventory is Sony’s Celador format Brainiest (Le Grand Concours), which Degroote says still works very well. “It’s a show we can easily produce during a pandemic because, even if there is no audience in the studio, we can do it with 12 celebrities and a host and we can respect all the safety protocols.”

However, the exec is hopeful TF1 will be able to launch new developments and commission new shows in the coming months to air during the 2021/22 season.

“If the crisis and restrictions continue, no one in the world will be able to produce ambitious new formats, and then there could be a shortage of new formats for the 2021/22 season,” he says.

“What we have in mind is to keep looking for new opportunities and ambitious new projects, because we hope that a new normal will be back in the coming months.

We’re going to respect and put in place safety protocols to be sure that all the technical crews, all the artistic crews and the audiences eventually coming to the studio will be safe. That’s the main priority.”

Degroote says he continues to look for new daily factual entertainment formats for TF1’s access primetime and family-oriented shiny-floor entertainment shows with high production values for primetime. “That’s a key point for us,” he notes.

With the pandemic forcing more people to work remotely and a shift towards development likely, Degroote says he expects to receive more paper formats than ever in the forthcoming season.

“Usually, we first ask for a short two-page deck by email.

If it fits with our needs or with our strategy, we organise a Zoom meeting for international partners. Of course, with French producers, we may have a meeting at TF1,” says Degroote.

“We are very open to receiving pitches from foreign companies, not only French ones. My team and I love working with new partners from different markets because, in the end, they bring us new perspectives and fresh points of view.”

Global Agency format Is That Really Your Voice? airs as Good Singers

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Formats in focus at Fuji Fuji TV’s new formats team – head of formats Ryuji Komiya and producer Yuki Matsumoto – are working with legendary TV scriptwriter Yasushi Akimoto, who is behind Japanese pop group AKB48, to produce non-scripted formats.

You have unveiled two new formats: Quiz Pinch Hitter and Idea Chef.

What was the inspiration behind the two ideas?

Yuki Matsumoto: The internet is very useful for answering questions, so we wondered if there were any questions that couldn’t be answered via the internet. That is the origin of Quiz Pinch Hitter. The Japanese record producer, lyricist and writer Yasushi Akimoto, best known for creating and producing some of Japan’s top idol groups, including AKB48, is the supervisor of this show.

He is always thinking about bringing TV and the internet together. Together with Mr Akimoto, we thought it would be very interesting and fun to create very difficult or maniac questions and use Yuki Matsumoto the internet to solve them.

Cookery shows are also still in high demand but people have to stay at home due to Covid-19. Because of this, I thought we could produce a cooking battle show that uses ingredients from our surroundings and still be fine cuisine. That’s how Idea Chef was born.

How are these formats different to other quiz and cookery shows on the market?

Yuki Matsumoto: With Quiz Pinch Hitter, the biggest difference is you do not have to answer the questions but instead your friends or followers answer for you. You don’t need knowledge but personal connections. And Idea Chef is a cooking show with restrictions on what can be used as ingredients. Having limited ingredients with contestants participating remotely makes it different from other food shows and it’s perfect for this Covid-19 period.

How did they perform when they aired in Japan?

Ryuji Komiya: Quiz Pinch Hitter aired live between 00.55 and 02.55 and its share was 20.3%, which was rated number one in the time slot. Idea Chef was aired from 01.35 to 02.35 and its share was 16.8%, which rated second in the time slot.

When new programmes are launched in Japan, the pilot is tested in the midnight zone. If the ratings are good, it will be tried several more times in the midnight zone before heading to primetime.

How is Fuji’s format distribution strategy changing?

Ryuji Komiya: Fuji’s format sales started back in the 1980s and we have sold over 60 titles into more than 50 countries worldwide. Our formats include Iron Chef [sold to eight countries] and Hole in the Wall [50 countries] and about 25% of our international distribution business is from non-scripted format licensing.

But these days, due to the ageing Japanese population, most of our primetime variety shows are talkshows with comedians, which are very hard to sell globally. With the Covid situation as well, we believe the following three points are the key to our new format distribution strategy in this new normal: a safe and secure TV production, low-cost production and high ratings, especially in 13- to 49-year-olds.

With these points in mind, we created Quiz Pinch Hitter and Idea Chef. The two pilots were well received and there are plans for second episodes in the future. Hopefully, they will go into primetime on Fuji and be licensed globally.

These are the first steps of our new format strategy, so I hope that with Yuki we can create more formats that fit with this new normal.

Ryuji Komiya

DEVELOPMENT SLATE: ITV Studios

Channel 21 International | Mipcom Online+ 2020

Love Island

Adapt to survive

A

s a major player in the formats space, ITV Studios (ITVS) has a bulging catalogue including hit shows such as The Voice, I’m a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!, Love Island and The Chase.

Each of those programmes is either based in a studio and filmed with an audience or requires travelling to hardto-reach parts of world – two things that have proved near impossible to achieve in the middle of a global pandemic.

The production issues caused by Covid-19 initially led to the cancellation of certain shows, such as the summer edition of Love Island UK, but as the virus continues to sweep around the world, ITVS is exploring ways it can continue to produce its formats safely.

“First and foremost, ITV Studios’ strategy was [to ensure] the safety of the cast and crew, so we took a lot of time in the midpoint of the lockdown to look at all the regulations from around the world, working with our local production companies and partners to find safe ways of working,” says Mike Beale, MD of the global creative network at ITVS. “If we haven’t felt it safe, we haven’t done a show. With Love Island UK, it was decided we shouldn’t do it. But in the US and Germany, for example, we found ways in which we could produce safely under the guidelines and not put any cast and crew at risk.”

Love Island US had previously taken place in Fiji, but CBS’s latest instalment was shot in a villa on top of a hotel in Las Vegas, which allows producers to “bubble the whole crew,” Beale points out.

ITV Studios has responded to the pandemic by finding ways to get some of its hit shows back on air safely whilst developing Covid-proof formats for an uncertain future.

By Karolina Kaminska The UK version of I’m a Celebrity...

Get Me Out of Here!, meanwhile, will take place in Wales this November rather than the usual location of Australia.

The pandemic has also encouraged ITVS to develop new formats that can be produced in a Covid-safe environment, such as upcoming adventure series Don’t Rock the Boat, in which two celebrity teams compete to row the entire length of Britain.

The show, which is produced by ITVS-backed South Shore, joins new interactive gameshow Beat the Grid, a cost-effective format that can be produced with minimal crew and studio facilities.

Created by ITVS-owned Armoza Formats, Beat the Grid sees a contestant go head-to-head with viewers and seek the correct answer in an ever-increasing grid of options.

The show uses CGI to turn a simple set requiring few crew members into a big shiny-floor format.

While Beale notes the demand for fast-turnaround shows made on video platforms like Zoom has died out, he explains that other formats that are quick, easy and safe to produce, such as quizshows and gameshows, are seeing increased demand.

Cost-effective formats like Beat the Grid are also becoming an important

focus for producers, according to Armoza Formats’ head Avi Armoza, who points out that the pandemic has “accelerated” a trend for cheaper shows that had begun to emerge before the crisis hit.

“Lower-budget shows are becoming far more important because of the pandemic. We are focusing on feelgood, cost-effective formats that don’t need an audience,” Armoza says.

In line with the rising demand for gameshows, Maarten Meijs, president of global entertainment at ITVS, points out that the genre represents one of the three key types of formats that buyers are looking for at present, the other two being feel-good shows, such as The Voice and escapist formats like Love Island.

As for the future of format production, Beale says that while the increased use of technology and different ways of shooting seen during the pandemic will modernise production techniques, remote production will not be common in future once social distancing restrictions are lifted.

“As soon as we get rid of bubbles and restricted numbers we will need to get people back together again, both in the marketplace and on TV. Being two metres apart from each other is going to look odd in the future,” he says.

From top: Mike Beale and Maarten Meijs of ITV Studios and Armoza Formats’ Avi Armoza

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20

PRESENT IMPERFECT FUTURE TENSE: Remy Blumenfeld

Don’t fold, reinvent T here are things people end up sharing with their coach that they often don’t admit to their colleagues, friends, partner or even to themselves. That’s how I know how bad the pandemic has been for most company founders in the TV sector. For many, right now feels like the perfect time to ‘relaunch.’

How bad it is at the moment depends a lot on the size and age of your business. On the sliding scale of pain, it seems to me that it’s the founders of smaller, younger companies who have suffered the least and who are most realistic in their hopes for their company’s future.

In the first place, the fixed overheads for smaller production companies tend to be much lower, with some already working from home before Covid-19, and without the costs of full-time staff. When it comes to dealing with programme budgets of £40,000 (US$51,000) an hour, to the founder of a small indie, that’s often more than they’ve had to work with before. They’re used to working with ‘preditors’ and self-shooting presenter/directors.

What’s more, having set up shop relatively recently, not only are the expectations of these founders more in line with current realities, their values are too. They don’t need to search for BAME producers because they already have them on their team. They don’t need to scout for an office outside London’s M25 orbital motorway because they’re already working from their home barn in Wales.

Next up on the scale of pain are the CEOs and founders of very large, established companies. They’re already scaling back and they know that they will have to make more big cuts soon. They may even have to take a pay cut themselves.

But the hardest hit, it seems to me, are the founders of mid-sized, more established production companies. They’re much more bonded with their teammates, so letting them go en masse feels like a personal failure. Their office lease usually requires a notice period of years or months, which would drain any possible reserves. They’re not accustomed to delivering programmes at £40k or £50k per hour, and very often their company’s ethos feels out of touch.

My challenge for founders is this: describe the kind of company that you feel has a future,

Formats veteran Remy Blumenfeld says founders of struggling indies should use the pandemic as a segue to reinventing themselves as the producers they’ve dreamed of being.

that you would feel excited to run for the next 10 years.

Recently, founders I’ve spoken to have been describing new businesses that have little in common with their own. The main difference is that their ‘ideal’ company is based around programming they feel personally excited by, whereas their current or past business is based around the programming they have succeeded in selling but are not especially proud of.

The next biggest difference between their current business and their ideal one is this: their current business is just a production outfit, whereas their ideal business is a stand for people they would like to support or a cause they believe in, whether it’s workingclass leaders, BAME women, LGBT causes or the environment.

Clients feel safer buying from a company with a proven track record, a specialty that they’re known for – the narrower the better.

You can’t be too niche. So, making only what you love and do best is not a matter of selfindulgence, it’s a matter of survival.

And, more than ever, we are drawn to people and businesses with values that resonate with our own.

Giving voice to what matters most to you as the founder and articulating your company’s values is not only a matter of pride and joy, it will also attract clients, colleagues and, ultimately, perhaps even a buyer.

So, before you commit to working 10 times harder or look at how to shut up shop for good, it could be worth giving thought to the kind of business you’d actually love to run. Not only can necessity be the mother of re-invention, it can often be the perfect excuse. Sometimes it actually takes some serious ashes for a Phoenix to rise.

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