TV Formats October 2014

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TVFORMATS

WWW.TVFORMATS.WS

OCTOBER 2014

Singing Competitions / Legacy Formats / FOX’s Simon Andreae Broadchurch’s Chris Chibnall / The Bridge’s Lars Blomgren

MIPCOM EDITION

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CONTENTS FEATURES

Calling All Creatives A wave of consolidation has hit the media industry, in what could likely be dubbed the age of the megamerger.

Ricardo Seguin Guise Publisher Anna Carugati Editor Mansha Daswani Executive Editor Kristin Brzoznowski Managing Editor Joanna Padovano Associate Editor Joel Marino Assistant Editor Simon Weaver Online Director Victor L. Cuevas Production & Design Director Phyllis Q. Busell Art Director Cesar Suero Sales & Marketing Director Faustyna Hariasz Sales & Marketing Coordinator Terry Acunzo Business Affairs Manager

Ricardo Seguin Guise President Anna Carugati Executive VP & Group Editorial Director Mansha Daswani Associate Publisher & VP of Strategic Development TV Formats © 2014 WSN INC. 1123 Broadway, #1207 New York, NY 10010 Phone: (212) 924-7620 Fax: (212) 924-6940 Website: www.tvformats.ws

The format business has certainly been impacted in the process, but is it for better or worse? Some will argue that when smaller companies get gobbled up by larger media conglomerates, the creativity begins to peter out, as these former indies lose their independence within larger corporate entities. Another camp maintains that being part of a larger group bolsters the creative process through the exchange of ideas and shared know-how between the various outfits. Regardless of which side of the debate you may fall on, one thing that is certain about the state of the format market today is that there is a call for greater creativity.

Buzzwords such as “fresh” and “innovative” and the phrase “the next big thing” are bandied about whenever broadcasters or distributors are asked what type of formats they are looking for nowadays. It’s not that the entertainment megahits from the days of yore are no longer working, because they certainly still are. The Amazing Race has been on the air since 2001, the same year that Idols broke out onto the scene. Come Dine with Me has been going strong for nearly a decade, as has Dancing with the Stars. There are a number of other formats that have withstood the test of time, re-commissioned season after season, albeit getting a few facelifts along the way. A feature in this issue of TV Formats examines how companies are refreshing and refining their biggest format brands to keep them on broadcasters’ schedules for the long term.

Another feature in this issue looks at the perennially popular genre of singing competitions. Audiences are still embracing these shows, so much so that new contenders are popping up to challenge established hits. Many of these singing competitions are harnessing interactive elements to deepen engagement and put a new spin on this tried-and-tested favorite. While interactivity does hold some promise for what’s to come, it remains to be seen how this technology can spawn something entirely new and fresh for the format market.

This edition also spotlights the honorees of the inaugural World Screen Format Trendsetter Awards, held in association with Reed MIDEM: Keshet’s Ran Telem, CTV’s Phil King, TV 2 Danmark’s Anette Romer and Modern Times Group’s Merrily Ross.

—Kristin Brzoznowski

28 PERFECT PITCH

The battle between singing competition formats is heating up as new entrants take on established hits.

36 RETURN TO FOREVER

Even as they hunt for the next big idea in formats, distributors are committed to building brands that will return, year after year.

56 WORLD SCREEN FORMAT TRENDSETTERS Profiling the honorees of the first-ever World Screen Format Trendsetter Awards, in association with Reed MIDEM.

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28 INTERVIEWS

44

FOX’s Simon Andreae

50

Broadchurch’s Chris Chibnall

54

The Bridge’s Lars Blomgren

60

Armoza Formats’ Avi Armoza

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A+E Networks Love Prison / Tiny House Nation / Rowhouse Showdown The new series Love Prison has stirred up quite a bit of buzz in the U.S., and A+E Networks is offering the finished series as well as the format at MIPCOM. The show sees couples who have been dating online meet for the first time by spending seven days together in a cabin on a remote island. “Love Prison’s universal appeal is undeniable,” says Ellen Lovejoy, the VP of international content sales at A+E Networks. “People all over the world are looking for love, and one in three relationships start online—this is a global phenomenon.” Also on offer from A+E Networks is Tiny House Nation, which features design projects of creating mini dream homes from scratch.

There’s also Rowhouse Showdown, in which teams of renovation experts transform dilapidated homes.

“During this year’s MIPCOM market, our goal is to strengthen our existing relationships and partner with key broadcasters and producers to bring these formats to life around the world.”

Rowhouse Showdown

—Ellen Lovejoy

all3media international Algorithm / Bad Robots / Are You Normal?

The prime-time game show Algorithm pits man against machine as family members attempt to prove that they know one of their relatives better than a computer does. “It’s really interesting, as well as great fun, to see if a computer’s algorithm can know a person’s likes and dislikes better than their closest family members,” says Nick Smith, VP of format sales at all3media international. The company is launching Algorithm at MIPCOM, where it will also be debuting the hidden-camera format Bad Robots.

Another highlight is Are You Normal?, which looks at the behavior of people in various situations. “Even though Are You Normal? is a format that has been produced on three continents, it feels very much like a local show because it is centered on what is and isn’t normal in your nation,” Smith says.

“We have lots of factual-entertainment shows and scripted reality airing on channels all around the world, so we’re now excited to make a mark in entertainment formats and believe we have the product to do so.”

Algorithm

—Nick Smith

Armoza Formats The People’s Choice / Flight 920 / By Invitation Only The prime-time studio game show The People’s Choice offers an opportunity for the whole nation to get involved by playing along. “The ability to not only ‘create’ the content of The People’s Choice but to also win money as you play definitely takes the viewer experience to a much richer level than we’ve seen elsewhere,” says Avi Armoza, the founder and CEO of Armoza Formats. Also positioned for prime time, By Invitation Only is a celebrity entertainment show. Armoza says that both The People’s Choice and By Invitation Only are perfect for broadcasters looking for event programming. In the reality genre, there’s Flight 920, which features a dating element. “This adds extra intrigue to the show and further intensifies the viewers’ relationship with the contestants,” says Armoza.

“This MIPCOM, we are bringing formats that take audience engagement to the next level.”

—Avi Armoza The People’s Choice 444 World Screen 10/14

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BBC Worldwide Tumble / Your Home in Their Hands / Orphan Black BBC Worldwide has built a track record in delivering successful, big, shiny-floor formats. The latest from the company is Tumble. “Featuring jaw-dropping and highly skilled routines from celebrities as you’ve never seen them before, it has all of the high entertainment and production values that you would expect from the creative team that brought you Dancing with the Stars,” says Suzanne Kendrick, the head of format sales at BBC Worldwide. Also launching at MIPCOM is Your Home in Their Hands, in which home decorators who have only ever worked on their own houses are given free rein to perform makeovers on other people’s dwellings. BBC Worldwide has also expanded its roster of scripted formats, which now includes Orphan Black.

“Your Home in Their Hands takes the popular home-makeover genre up a notch with a high-stakes central premise.”

Your Home in Their Hands

—Suzanne Kendrick

Blue Box Entertainment Face to Face / Now or Never / The Soul The two lead offerings from Italy’s Blue Box Entertainment this MIPCOM both feature interactive technology. Face to Face is an interactive game show. Now or Never is a dating show that engages with the audience through an app. Silvio Testi, the CEO of Blue Box, says that these formats are a perfect fit for broadcasters looking to reach out to a younger target audience.

At MIPCOM, Blue Box is also presenting the format The Soul.

The adventure reality series challenges nine men to undertake a range of endurance tests and adrenaline-filled trials. Other titles being offered by the company include Freehand Drawing, which is a talent competition for cartoonists and illustrators, and Dance School, offering aspiring dancers a chance to win a scholarship to a prestigious performing-arts school.

“This year, Blue Box presents 15 original formats.”

—Silvio Testi The Soul

CJ E&M Corporation Sold Out / The Bunker / Grandpas Over Flowers The fashion competition Sold Out watches as designers create unique clothes for the runway that the audience will vote on. “These one-of-a-kind ‘sold out’ pieces will be available for purchase at both [retail] and online stores,” says Alex Oe, the director of acquisitions and sales at CJ E&M Corporation, which is presenting the show in Cannes. The company is also offering up The Bunker. “Each week, a car is bought with the intention of upgrading and selling it over the buying price,” says Oe of The Bunker. “The car is then sold through an open auction.” Then there is Grandpas Over Flowers, which has enjoyed success in China since it launched there this summer.

Oe says he’d like to see some new versions of the show head into production.

“We’re continuing to pitch successful programs that have gained attention on our channels.”

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—Alex Oe

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Eccho Rights Crack Them Up / Beat the Champions / Exit Eccho Rights’ breakout hit format Crack Them Up is taking off, with pickups in more than five countries in the last few months. “It is a very original quest for comedy talent that really works,” says Fredrik af Malmborg, the managing director at Eccho Rights. The format sees regular people doing their best to make two comedians laugh. If they succeed, they can walk away with a cash prize. “We are evaluating offers for Crack Them Up in most markets around the world and want to find strong production partners for our top formats,” says af Malmborg of his MIPCOM plans. Another format that Eccho Rights will be discussing with buyers is Beat the Champions, from TV Asahi in Japan. Exit, meanwhile, comes from NTV in Japan.

“We are going to Cannes to find new producers to represent with our powerful distribution machine.”

Exit

—Fredrik af Malmborg

FremantleMedia Master Athletes / Heaven or Hell / Celebrity Name Game The sports-themed Master Athletes is a high-octane entertainment format from the FremantleMedia catalogue. “It’s an intense and groundbreaking reality show where 24 ultrafit members of the public prepare themselves for a grueling ten-week challenge,” says Rob Clark, the company’s director of global entertainment development. “To win, the teams must conquer ten sporting disciplines.” Another highlight from FremantleMedia is Heaven or Hell, a game show in which contestants must correctly answer a series of multiple-choice questions. If they are unsure of an answer, they have to complete a “hellish and hilarious Jackass-style challenge,” says Clark. The company is also bringing to the market Celebrity Name Game, a pop-culture quiz show.

“Our slate is full of incredibly strong, original and promotable formats that are creative and have proven ratings track records.”

Master Athletes

—Rob Clark

Global Agency Stand By Me / Stars on the Street / Flirt or Fiasco As singing competitions continue to grab audiences around the world, Global Agency believes it has found “the next big thing” with Stand By Me. “With the duets and the celebrity jury also taking part as contestants, it is a very exciting new concept,” says Izzet Pinto, the founder and CEO of Global Agency. The company is also betting on Stars on the Street to attract buyers’ attention. The singing competition sees performers taking to the street to find out who is the favorite of the passersby. Global Agency is also launching the new dating show Flirt or Fiasco. “Competition and romance mix in the series, and audiences will find it wonderfully entertaining to see who can plan the hottest date in town and find true love,” says Pinto.

“We’ve been consistently adding very strong projects to our catalogue, and we will continue to add many more groundbreaking hits.”

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—Izzet Pinto

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ITV Studios Global Entertainment The Secret Life of Students/Teens / Quiz Duel / The Line The reality format The Secret Life of Students/Teens features a new technological innovation developed to track the digital lives of its contributors. The technology captures digital data, from voice calls and messages to Facebook posts, tweets and search histories. “The result is a completely new and modern observational documentary format, in which the digital content drives the narrative,” says Mike Beale, the director of international formats at ITV Studios. The format is a lead offering for ITV Studios Global Entertainment (ITVS GE), which is also presenting Quiz Duel. Beale calls Quiz Duel “a simple but addictive quiz show.” The Line, meanwhile, is a game show that sees people waiting in line get the chance to win an ever-growing jackpot.

“Each of these titles brings a new twist to its genre, meaning they are all unique in their own way.”

Quiz Duel

—Mike Beale

Keshet International Help! I Can’t Cook / Not a Star Yet / Babe Magnet MIPCOM marks the launch of Keshet International’s new reality format Help! I Can’t Cook. The series sees celebrities check into a culinary institute to overcome their fears in the kitchen. “It’s a fly-on-the-wall experiment about what happens when you mix a lot of people with huge egos, have them live together day in and day out, and take on tasks that are way outside of their comfort zones,” says Keren Shahar, the general manager of distribution at Keshet International. “As we continue our push into the representation of select third-party formats, we will also showcase several other new properties from around the world.” This includes the talent show Not a Star Yet, from Wu Tong for ZJTV in China, and Babe Magnet, produced by Nutz Productions for Comedy Central Israel.

“Help!

I Can’t Cook is going to be very, very funny and quite emotional too.”

—Keren Shahar Help! I Can’t Cook

Passion Distribution Quiz Nights / Divorce Hotel / Skin Wars A new Firecracker Films format, Quiz Nights is a quiz show with a comical twist. “Each week, we join four teams of family and friends in a relaxed environment in different parts of the country as they answer the exact same questions at the same time, battling it out to become that evening’s champions,” says Sally Miles, the CEO of Passion Distribution. “The audience can play along at home while enjoying the witty interaction of the teams.”

Passion has already seen some strong momentum behind the format Divorce Hotel. “This format delivers on every level and puts talking-point TV back into homes,” says Miles. Divorce Hotel is currently casting for a second season in the Netherlands and has been picked up in four new territories ahead of MIPCOM. Skin Wars, a body-painting competition, is also a highlight.

“We are extending Passion’s reach in the world of format distribution, introducing exciting new prime-time entertainment and stand-out factualentertainment formats to the international market with proven ratings success.”

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—Sally Miles

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Red Arrow International Escape Your Life / Lost in Love / Decimate The format Escape Your Life, a lead offering from Red Arrow International, gives three couples the opportunity to start over in a new place that is chosen by a team of experts. The couples will have only the clothes on their backs and a suitcase full of money when they arrive. The company is also highlighting Lost in Love, which follows people as they go on a quest to track down “the one that got away.” Decimate, a new BBC daytime quiz show, sees prize money get “decimated” each time an incorrect answer is given. “MIPCOM is the perfect market to launch new formats,” says Henrik Pabst, the company’s managing director of global format and factual distribution. “It’s also a great place to find new projects, meet talent and hopefully secure the next big thing.”

“Our formats introduce a new twist to their already popular genres, and thereby create their own marketing strategy.”

Lost in Love

—Henrik Pabst

Secuoya Content Distribution Soul Out / Surviving the Wolfpack / The Shower Spain’s Secuoya Content Distribution is using MIPCOM as a chance to showcase its many format offerings. Among its highlights is The Shower, which sees singers perform in front of an audience, with one twist: they’re inside a shower in the middle of the stage. “It was launched last MIPTV and it was very welcomed,” says Vanessa Palacios, the company’s content manager. “We have optioned it around the world.” Surviving the Wolfpack is an adventure reality show where ten contestants must use the abilities of a wolf to overcome different challenges. Finally, the game show Soul Out has people try to sell their souls to make their dreams come true, with buyers using an app to state what they want in exchange.

“The Shower is a talent show that brings freshness and fun to this hot genre.”

The Shower

—Vanessa Palacios

Shine International MasterChef / The Island with Bear Grylls / Restaurant Startup Shine International’s new format launches for MIPCOM “are testament to our creativity and pursuit of extraordinary TV,” says Nadine Nohr, the company’s CEO. Included in Shine International’s offering is The Island with Bear Grylls, in which 13 British men are abandoned on a remote, uninhabited Pacific island to see if modern man can survive in the wild. Also making its debut is Shine America’s Restaurant Startup, which sees successful restaurateur Joe Bastianich and chef and restaurant operator Tim Love vie against each other to invest their own money in food concepts they believe will make them millions. “We are also celebrating the overwhelming success of MasterChef, the global smash hit cooking competition packed full of drama,” says Nohr.

“We always look for resonance and relevance in our scripted, entertainment and factual programming, as well as the new and creatively challenging.”

MasterChef 452 World Screen 10/14

—Nadine Nohr

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Studio Glam 300 Sec Ride / The Extra Mile / Like Share Please Studio Glam is a boutique content development and TV production company located in Israel. It was co-founded

by Ami and Ilan Glam in 2013. In the last year, Studio Glam has produced, developed and co-distributed 12 original formats, spanning reality TV series, documentaries and game shows. Several of these formats have been sold and are currently in different stages of production. Among the offerings is 300 Sec Ride. Each episode of the fastpaced quiz show sees one couple embark on a 300-second ride on the “Time Track,” which is a specially designed moving platform that runs from one side of the studio to the other. The contestants must answer eight questions before they run out of time. If they succeed, they get one chance to answer the final question, worth a very handsome prize. 300 Sec Ride is a new launch for Studio Glam, which is also offering the successful reality format The Extra Mile. This show has been sold into a number of territories already. Ilan Glam, the company’s CEO and head of international, is also excited about presenting buyers with the new factual-entertainment show Like Share Please, which is making its TV debut in Israel in 2015. This format presents a new way of storytelling, according to Ilan Glam, as it uses the power of social networking and input from members of the community.

“At Studio Glam, we have expanded the variety of our products.”

—Ilan Glam

300 Sec Ride

Talpa Global Utopia / Beat It / The Big Picture Talpa’s focus this MIPCOM is to further build on the success of Utopia. This multiplatform reality format has been produced in the U.S., Germany, Romania, Turkey and in the Netherlands, where the show has been so successful, it will continue indefinitely after the initial broadcast period of one year. “In addition to phenomenally successful formats such as Utopia, The Voice and The Voice Kids, Talpa will offer a strong new lineup featuring programs of different genres,” says Maarten Meijs, the company’s managing director. “These include The Big Picture, a connected game show in which home players can play along [in real time]; Beat It, a hilarious talent competition with spectacular eliminations for those who don’t measure up; and Born to Bloom, a flower-arranging competition.” Also debuting in Cannes are The Secret of a Good Marriage, which explores whether science or nature is the best matchmaker; Take That!, a hidden-camera show featuring the latest technology; and Money Matters, a format that tries to make a difference for those in dire financial straits. The quiz show What Do I Know?! sees three national celebrities battle each other in a wide range of general-knowledge questions to win a cash prize for a deserving individual. Another highlight is Divorce, a dramedy format about three guys with one thing in common: they are all in the middle of messy break-ups.

“Talpa Global introduces proven formats to the international marketplace.”

—Maarten Meijs

Beat It 454 World Screen 10/14

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Perfect Pitch Televisa Internacional’s Sing It, Sell It.

The battle between singing competition formats is heating up as new entrants take on established hits.

By Jane Marlow t’s been 15 years since, as legend has it, Jonathan Dowling looked at global pop phenomena like the Spice Girls and thought, What New Zealand really, really wants is a TV show that puts the process of creating an internationally renowned girl band in the spotlight. The result was the trailblazing format Popstars.

By focusing on the audition process and dangling a recording contract under the noses of voracious wannabes, the show reinvented the singing competition on TV. Unlike some of the acts these shows have created, the genre itself was no one-hit wonder. Popstars now forms part of Banijay International’s catalogue, and Sebastian

I

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Burkhardt, the company’s head of sales, sees no decrease in the global appetite for the shows he describes as “the stars of the international format business.”

But this lengthy reign as format royalty has been hard earned. In a TV landscape that has become increasingly cluttered and fragmented, the secret to these shows’ star quality is that, at their biggest and best, they pull in viewing figures other genres can only dream of.

“American Idol became a complete juggernaut,” says Chris O’Dell, head of global entertainment production at FremantleMedia. “It changed the face of American TV. It made the industry in the U.S. and around the world look at

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FremantleMedia’s The X Factor is the U.K.’s most successful singing competition and one of the company’s biggest brands globally.

the strength of the medium we work with and realize that if you get a product really right, like we did with American Idol, then there’s potential for a massive audience response.”

IDOL MANIA Since 2001, FremantleMedia’s Idols format alone has been watched by 460 million viewers worldwide over 207 seasons in 47 territories, spawning 47 number one records.

With the stakes so high, the market in this genre is intensely competitive. With The X Factor, Idols and, more recently, The Voice and Rising Star all having become stalwarts in the schedule, the battle for space is intense.

The X Factor and Idols “are huge formats and they continue to do incredibly well around the world, so [broadcasters] are going to think carefully before they move away from what is a kind of guaranteed ratings winner,” observes Tim Mutimer, the head of non-scripted at Zodiak Rights, which has a mix of singing competition formats in its catalogue, among them Killer Karaoke and Don’t Forget the Lyrics!

“The longer they’ve been on air, the more expensive they’re likely to become. In any format’s life, there’s going to be a point where the cost compared to the return starts to make people question if they should do something else.”

With prime-time slots under pressure, the scalability of Sing My Song from Star China is a key strength, prompting ITV Studios Global Entertainment to pick up the format rights earlier this year. Mike Beale, the director of international formats at ITV Studios, explains that while it could play well on a Saturday night on an ITV or BBC, the format’s focus on the songwriter rather than the performer gives it a “cooler” feel, which means it could also air on a Channel 4 or even go onto Sky. He adds, “Because it doesn’t feature 5,000 people queuing outside an auditorium, you don’t need those major slots because the costs aren’t as high. The Chinese show was huge and exciting and big, but it is scalable. You can start small and build to the big finale, whereas The X Factor starts so big now that you need those prime-time slots to see it work.”

Mutimer also highlights the importance of versatility. “We have producers who work very closely with our sales team here and with our clients, and they find ways of scaling most of our productions so they will be able to work for broadcasters in different territories and with different budgets.

Killer Karaoke is the cheapest show to create, but it works for countries where budgets are relatively small, like Cambodia,

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through to the U.S. The Best Singers has gone into the Scandinavian territories, which might have smaller budgets than a TF1, so we’re able to scale the budgets as required.”

With Popstars enjoying a second bite at the cherry in France on D8 and Denmark’s Kanal 5, Banijay’s Burkhardt thinks singing competitions are no longer the preserve of the big-budget broadcasters but are now sought after by smaller channels looking to make a splash.

“You can see where those types of shows can really transform the channel and its position within the market,” says Burkhardt. “France is a very good example. Five years ago you would only ever see those kind of shows on TF1 and M6 and now you have them on W9 and D8, which have increased their ratings from year to year. Smaller channels will go for them and make them their tentpole formats to attract those audiences.”

RAGS TO RICHES FremantleMedia’s O’Dell talks about the Cinderella story for unknowns at the heart of a singing competition as being the essence of its success, but some wonder whether Cinderella would really want to go to a ball if the prime-time eyes of the nation weren’t watching.

Avi Armoza, founder and CEO of Armoza Formats, says, “The money is still in prime-time television, and there’s a certain level of investment and production values that you need to have in order to have a successful prime-time show, which you can’t do on a smaller platform. These shows are fulfilling a dream; people want to appear in front of a wide audience and see the amazing investment in the set and the look and feel. This is part of the value of the show.”

What is it about singing formats that gets populations from Cambodia to the U.S. tuning in to hear their fellow citizens’ efforts? Andrew Zein, senior VP of creative, format development and sales at Warner Bros. International Television Production, says it’s the universality of music that makes the genre travel so well. “Everyone can recognize something that’s good and something that’s bad [in music], which allows us all to have personal opinions,” he says.

But despite the appeal of the core premise, it’s not the case that one size fits all. The big brands repackage the essence of their propositions to secure their place in a given market.

“We’re very mindful that we can’t just go around the world making the American or British version of these shows,” says O’Dell. “We have to be aware of local sensibil-

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ities in terms of the cultural need of their market generally.

When we’ve done our shows in France, for example, there’s a strict guideline that 50 percent of songs on any French TV show have to be in French.

“The show has to cater to what the audience is looking for,” he adds. “I would say if you put on X Factor Australia, Italy, Albania, any of the places we’ve done it, you’d recognize the show but you’d also recognize in it elements of where the show is made. They have the personality of the audience they’re made for and the personality of the people who are making the show. That’s really important.”

A DIFFERENT TUNE Part of the challenge of introducing a new format in this genre is finding a twist that will capture the public’s imagination in a new and exciting way. Idols introduced the audience vote, The X Factor brought in the competition between the judges, The Voice emphasized talent over image and Rising Star swaggered onto the market with its wall of screens and realtime voting, but these shows all offer recording contracts to aspiring singers.

Televisa Internacional, a relatively new entrant in the format business, is taking a different approach to the traditional singing format. Sing It, Sell It, for example, allows contestants to sell products by singing their sales pitches. In Playback, meanwhile, four judges have to determine whether those competing are singing live or lip-synching. The Mexican distributor is also home to the Singing for a Dream format, and the general talent search Little Giants.

Keshet International, which has been rolling out Rising Star worldwide, made young talent the focus on Master Class, where kids sing classic tunes and receive only positive feedback from the judges. In its first season in Israel it

One of the world’s first big talent formats, Popstars, from the Banijay International catalogue, is seeing a new lease on life.

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averaged a 48-percent viewing share. It has been licensed or optioned in several markets, including China.

Armoza’s Celebrity Battle was developed with and airs on JSBC in China. Its focus is on celebrity singer-producer teams who compete across different genres to find the ultimate music duo, and it gives the viewer a peek into the mechanics of the industry. As the votes come in, the contestants’ chairs slide across the stage.

“You’re looking for a unique twist and to create a drama; [the moving chairs] are another nice visual element that translates the voting mechanism into something that is visual,” Armoza says. “This is one of the strong and unique elements of the show that make it much more dramatic.”

Another format that’s come out of the buoyant Chinese market is Sing My Song. ITV Studios’ Beale says that hearing the same songs repeatedly performed on talent shows in China gave producer Star China (which also produces the local version of The Voice) inspiration for the format.

“There’s a massive growth of singing competition shows in China,” adds Beale. “Not all of them are coming out into the international market, but Star saw that some of the talent base coming through The Voice and X Factor wrote their own songs. They thought, why not do a show where we nurture that talent and bring new songs to the fore, which then become the hits for these other shows.”

Beale explains that the format taps into a whole new demographic in terms of contestants. “There is this group of people who are almost disenfranchised [from TV singing competitions] because they want to sing their own songs,” says Beale. “What is unique about Sing My Song is that we’re bringing in a new pool of talent that probably wouldn’t go into the existing shows and we’re giving them a voice.”

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As far as The Best Singers is concerned, Zodiak’s Mutimer agrees that persuading established talent to get on board with an unknown format is challenging. In terms of Best Singers, he says, “Once the first series has gone to air, people see what a warm environment it is and what the artists themselves get out of it, the [emotional benefit] as well as the record sales afterwards.

The whole catalogue benefits from the exposure [the artists] get. People can see what a nice format it is and how well it works, and they are encouraged to join in.”

FINE-TUNING

Keshet International has a number of singing competition formats, among them Master Class, which puts kids in the spotlight.

With The Hit, where established performers take on tunes from aspiring singer-songwriters, in his catalogue, Warner Bros.’ Zein also talks about tapping into an audience that enjoys more authenticity in its music.

“Most entertainment producers aspire to come up with a show that can gather the nation around their TV sets in big numbers, but there is also a desire to be credible and deliver something that takes the genre and the portrayal of talent into a more credible arena,” says Zein. The Hit gets under the skin of the song-writing process and shows the audience how a song is inspired, developed and performed.

BEHIND THE MUSIC Song-writing talent is eager for TV exposure, ITV Studios’ Beale agrees, as he has seen with Sing My Song. “[Singer songwriters are] just not tapped usually because the programs aren’t designed for them,” comments Beale. “There will be cultures where songwriting is prevalent and I think of Ireland as one of those places. Holland and Sweden have a lot of songwriters, and obviously America does too.”

While Celebrity Battle has done well in its home market, Armoza acknowledges it’s a harder sell because it’s a more complex production to pull off. “It’s not like [it includes] amateurs who have the chance to be exposed,” says Armoza. “These are singers and they need to be dedicated to the show for a period [of time], so it poses a major production challenge for countries. It’s a question of whether [a territory is] willing to explore and change and move to other ideas.”

Celebrity Battle has secured a second season in China, creating that all-important track record which helps with the initial sell and also when recruiting celebrity talent.

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But even the best-loved brands are being developed and tweaked each year, and technology is one way of adding new layers. What Idols brought to the party all those years ago was an interactivity that put the viewer at the heart of the experience. Now Keshet International’s Rising Star has upped the ante with its real-time voting and wall-of-screens style interactivity. “[This] is a whole new viewing experience, a different and dramatic new way of watching television,” says Ran Telem, VP of programming for Keshet Broadcasting. “This, we felt, is the first time the viewer really makes the show from his smartphone/tablet or any other mobile device. It’s a simple, intuitive and very emotional way to create constant drama and excitement.”

This year, American Idol used Facebook to show pictures of people voting in the show, and FremantleMedia’s O’Dell says they’re looking at ways to give the audience more instant opportunities to influence their singing competition formats.

Zodiak’s Mutimer thinks one benefit of convergence is that viewers have more immediate opportunity to see and own the music and performances they’ve heard. “Strong content will blossom on whatever platform people are watching it on,” he says. “But, I think with music, people want to listen to it again.

People want to engage more, and anything that technology can do to allow you to do that more easily is a real benefit.”

The jury is out, however, about whether increased interactivity is the future of the genre. As Armoza points out, although territories such as the U.K., Israel and the U.S. are looking for these elements, with all the challenges that different time zones present for some territories, it’s just not as important at the moment.

“I think the most important thing is that the story works on a linear level and is strong enough,” says Armoza. “Our experience [is that interactivity] is not a game-changer, it’s an evolution of voting. First it was the phone, then SMS and now apps, so the potential for doing something that is a gamechanger is still there and hasn’t been explored yet.”

Banijay’s Burkhardt concludes, “Every six months we go down to Cannes and someone tries to add another layer on this genre. It remains to be seen if the new shows will cut through or if they’ll be perceived by the viewers as too gimmicky. It’s the viewers who decide what is a success, not just us thinking we need to add another layer on top of something that already exists and then it becomes more and more derivative.”

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ITV Studios Global Entertainment’s I’m a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!

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Return to FOREVER

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Even as they hunt for the next big idea in formats, distributors are committed to building brands that will return, year after year.

By Joanna Stephens

ometimes it helps to look back in order to move forward. In the ceaseless hunt for the Next Big Thing, are there takeaways to be had from the Last Big Things—those legacy formats that have been doing the business season after season, broadcaster after broadcaster, territory after territory?

Rob Clark, the director of global entertainment development at FremantleMedia, has no doubt. “There are definitely lessons to be learned from the great formats of the past,” he says, running through FremantleMedia’s embarrassment of riches on the super-format front: The Price Is Right, on air since 1956; Family Feud, which has been gently amusing audiences of all generations since 1976 and is, Clark maintains, “technically the perfect format”; Idols, watched by an eye-popping 460 million people in 47 territories since it launched in 2001; The X Factor, viewed by 350 million in 48 territories—and counting—since 2004; and the relatively youthful Got Talent, which launched in 2006 and is, according to Eurodata/Médiamétrie, currently the world’s top entertainment format, with 63 versions worldwide.

“Legacy shows have served FremantleMedia well,” Clark adds, with masterful understatement.

S

CURATING CLASSICS One of the characteristics shared by all the super-formats is flawless construction—a function of the time and effort invested in their development. Almost without exception, the classic shows were allowed to grow very, very slowly, Clark says, pointing to Family Feud as a prime example.

“The vast majority of formats don’t work,” he observes. “They have holes in them. They don’t engage or sustain, or they’re too simplistic, or there’s no emotional buy-in. But Family Feud is perfect, and that’s because it was in development for a long time. They ran through it over and over and over again, so it has really firm foundations. It absolutely works.”

Clark acknowledges that, in today’s more brutal world, “the industry doesn’t have the resources, time, patience or inclination” to stress-test concepts to such a degree of perfection—a trend that raises the question of how many legacy shows will be spawned by the present generation of formats.

Clark also warns that old isn’t synonymous with gold: “I would wave a flag to broadcasters and say our legacy formats aren’t successful because they’re old, but because they’ve been creatively cared for and properly managed.

They’ve been rebooted and redesigned and adapted to new media, which makes them feel modern and fresh. Pulling something out of a catalogue that hasn’t been looked at for 20 years doesn’t make a legacy format. That’s just something you threw away and refound.”

Clark’s contention that “you have to keep the creative eye very keen” to achieve a show that is worthy of legacy status chimes with the experience of Mike Beale, the director of international formats at ITV Studios.

LEGACY SEEKERS Like FremantleMedia, the format roots of the U.K.’s biggest production company run deep. Its oldest active format is Surprise, Surprise, a “nice, warm, Sunday-evening watch” that first launched in 1984 and is now back, after an 11-year hiatus, pulling in respectable audiences for ITV. But its catalogue is stuffed with other legacy gems, including three of format land’s big daddies: Come Dine with Me, broadcast on Channel 4 in the U.K. since 2005 and local versions in more than 30 territories; the 13-year-old I’m a Celebrity…

Get Me Out of Here!, which ITV Studios claims was the most-watched TV show in the U.K. and Germany in 2013; and Hell’s Kitchen, which has spawned around 15 “local” Gordon Ramsays since it debuted on ITV in 2004.

Speaking of the popular chef, Ramsay is also host and executive producer on MasterChef in the U.S. on FOX. The cooking competition format has an 83-percent-plus recommission rate, according to its global distributor, Shine International. First broadcast in the U.K. from 1990 to 2001, the show was rebooted in 2005 by the BBC and has gone on to be produced across the globe and has spawned a number of extensions, including MasterChef Junior and Celebrity MasterChef.

But even such entertainment juggernauts need TLC. “You have to look after your formats,” ITV’s Beale says. “You can’t just let them sit there and expect them to deliver the same punch they did when they first launched. To create a returning success—a show that’s capable of coming back year after year and entering the zeitgeist—you have to work hard to keep it fresh and relevant.”

BBC Worldwide had so much success with Dancing with the Stars in India that the company created a regional version, for West Bengal, on ETV Bangla. The veteran format has been sold to 51 countries—most recently Romania—since

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So what about tomorrow’s classics?

Does ITV Studios’ portfolio contain a legacy format in the making? A little surprisingly, Beale cites The Chase, the general-knowledge quiz show hosted

by Bradley Walsh (Law & Order) that debuted on ITV in 2009. “It’s not a flashy thing, but it’s been growing slowly and is now in seven territories, including the U.S. and Germany,” he says. “I think it’s going to be one of those titles that just beds in and becomes part of the scenery.

For me, that’s what makes a legacy format—a show that builds steadily, doesn’t burn itself out and can be refined and refreshed over time. There’s a tendency today to get new formats out there so fast that you end up making the same mistake in every territory. With a good oldfashioned slow-burner, you have time to get it right.”

FAMILIAR FACES

FremantleMedia’s Got Talent has 60-plus adaptations across the globe, including in the U.S. with NBC.

its launch in 2004 as Strictly Come Dancing in the U.K. In the U.S., the show remains a cornerstone of the ABC schedule, and it’s a top performer in Denmark, France, Australia, Sweden, Norway and Austria, among a host of other markets.

BRAND VALUES For ITV Studios’ Beale, creating a returning success involves working closely with his partners and listening to their suggestions for new editorial twists and nuances “that will add to the passion and tension” without compromising the core value of the brand. These learnings can then be disseminated across territories. Earlier this year, for example, ITV Studios hosted a workshop for some 30 producers to share what they had learned in making more than 8,000 episodes of Come Dine with Me across the world. The findings, Beale says, were not only illuminating—in France, for example, the food is the star of the show whereas in the U.K., it’s all about the social interaction—they also showcased several new narrative devices. “The German producers told us that every six weeks they did a special, such as Come Dine with Me in My Castle, featuring four aristocrats who own castles,” Beale says. “That’s a great idea that definitely resonates across territories. Sometimes it’s tempting to think that your own format is the best in the world and that nobody could improve on it. But that’s not true.”

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Taking a very different line is Keshet International, which exploded onto the global format scene last year with the singing competition Rising Star, said to be the hottest-selling new format of 2013.

“Older formats have the advantage of being familiar,” says former TV host Ran Telem, VP of programming at Keshet Broadcasting, who has developed several hit shows, including Fair & Square, Master Class, Hatufim and Deal with It!, since joining the Israeli broadcaster in 2000.

“The viewers know what to expect, and that’s what they get. That’s exactly the place we’re trying to avoid—the familiar, the predictable. We try to move into new, surprising, unpredictable places.”

Telem says Keshet’s returning formats are subjected to the same rigorous testing as new programs making their first outing. “Immediately upon the end of one season, we have a conclusion-drawing process in order to analyze the successes and failures of the previous season,” he adds. “From this we derive our goals for development for the next season.”

This is partly a response to the demanding nature of Israeli viewers, who expect “big and significant changes” to their shows from run to run—anything from a change of host to an unexpected editorial direction to a bold new social-media strategy—but it is also part of Keshet’s core belief that not being innovative is a far riskier tactic than trying something new and failing. As Telem puts it: “Our view is that innovation is not a luxury—it is inevitable. We believe that you always have to be one step ahead of the viewers, and that a veteran and mediocre format is more dangerous than failing with a new format.”

As to how much leeway content owners should give producers and broadcasters when refreshing legacy titles, Telem believes there is ultimately only one answer: anything that leads to a better show is valid and worth considering.

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Shine’s MasterChef continues to be renewed on leading broadcasters; FOX in the U.S. is now prepping its sixth season.

“The question of the relationship between format owners and producers is a very interesting one,” he observes. It can also, of course, be a challenging one, given the former’s understandable desire to maintain and protect the DNA of their show and the latter’s need to create buzz, curiosity and excitement—an ambition that often calls for a format to be restructured, repackaged and rebranded.

“There are two sides here,” Telem says. “On the one hand, we [as content owners] know from experience what’s best for our formats. Most of the dilemmas have already been encountered. But on the other hand, there’s nothing more pleasing than encountering a professional producer or broadcaster who can look at our format and add excellent ideas we hadn’t considered. Therefore, our tendency is to say yes more than no—but not if it contradicts the basic principles on which the show is based.”

In Turkey, Izzet Pinto, CEO of Global Agency, holds similar views. “We’re pretty flexible about changes,” he says. “Our instinct is to trust our clients, but we have made mistakes. A couple of times, broadcasters have changed a format too much and killed it. So these days we’re much more careful. We do accept changes, but they have to make sense and not be too complicated for the viewers to accept.”

KEEPING IT SIMPLE Simplicity is, in fact, Pinto’s guiding principle. It is also, he suggests, the common denominator shared by all returning formats. “If you can’t describe a show in two sentences, it’s probably not going to take the world by storm,” he says, demonstrating his theory by abstracting Global Agency’s longest-running format, Perfect Bride, which has now been sold into upwards of 25 territories, including China, India and Italy. “It features 12 young women who want to marry six young men,” Pinto says. “But the men bring their mothers

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along to help chose the perfect match for their sons. The show is unscripted, so it’s like a telenovela, with each episode having multiple dramas and resolutions, but with an overarching story line. In Turkey, it’s been a phenomenon—at its height, over 70 percent of the population watched the finale.”

The same two-line test can be applied to Shopping Monsters, which has been licensed and/or optioned in around 25 territories in just three years. Mixing competition, gossip, makeovers and fashion sense—or lack of it—the format pitches five women into an against-the-clock contest to see who can be the most stylish on the smallest budget. Pinto reports that Shopping Monsters, the 1,000th episode of which recently aired in Turkey, is the highest-rated daytime show on M6 in France and has topped the 500-episode mark on Vox in Germany.

SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW The question of why the industry is so focused on rebooting legacy titles rather than investing in fresh new shows has been much discussed on the stages of conferences and the pages of the trade press. Some believe it is a function of an increasingly cautious market, with broadcasters preferring to stick with the tried and trusted rather than chance their luck on the new and unpredictable. Others suggest that the problem is a lack of creativity, with too many look-alike, cookiecutter shows and not enough daring and original voices—possibly as a result of the risk-averse climate. Still others, including FremantleMedia’s Clark, say that there are just too many successful formats out there already. In other words, while the super-formats continue to draw huge audiences and generate massive ad revenues, there is simply no incentive for broadcasters to replace them.

Pinto agrees: “When you buy one of the big international franchise brands, you also buy audience and advertisers. That’s

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Global Agency’s Shopping Monsters has topped the 1,000-episode mark in Turkey, and is up to more than 500 in Germany.

why broadcasters are still prepared to pay big money for the classic formats, even though they could easily buy one of the cheaper, copycat shows that continue to flood the market.”

But he also believes that the second screen is partly responsible for the legacy-format phenomenon. “People aren’t watching TV with full concentration these days,” he says. “They’re being diverted by their iPads and iPhones and laptops, so they have a hard time focusing on anything too challenging on the first screen. They want to watch something they know and don’t have to work too hard to understand.”

SPARK OF CREATIVITY Fredrik af Malmborg, managing director of Eccho Rights, sees the current preoccupation with heritage formats as a commissioning rather than a creative issue.

“We don’t think there is a lack of creativity,” he says.

“There’s still a lot of development going on, but it has indeed become increasingly difficult for independent producers to get big new prime-time shows commissioned.” The Eccho Rights chief also cites risk aversion as the broadcaster default position, observing that most networks would rather put their prime-time budgets in the “safe” hands of a super indie than entrust it to an independent producer.

“It’s too bad that the big shows primarily come from the super indies, launching their new formats through their affiliated networks, whereas there is so much out there that is equally good, if not better” in the independent sector, he adds.

Eccho Rights’ catalogue includes several legacy titles, including Peking Express, which has been produced in

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more than ten territories since 2004. The reality format, in which eight couples set off on a gruelling race through unknown territories, surviving on just €1 a day, is now in its tenth season on M6 in France and has entered its third series on Rai 2 Italy, where it has been pulling in aboveaverage ratings in its time slot.

The job of “monitoring the basic DNA” of Eccho Rights’ formats falls to its sister company, Eccholine, which operates as a dedicated line producer, tasked with unleashing the full production potential of the group’s IP. This entails collaborating closely with local producers to find the best approach to each territory in terms of casting and narration. “The team at Eccholine has a vast collection of twists, game mechanics and play-outs that can be adapted to suit local requirements,” af Malmborg explains. “They know Peking Express so well that they can pretty much deliver anything and everything.

And what they don’t have, they develop.”

Af Malmborg makes the point that creative people tend to want to focus on exciting new projects rather than reworking old ideas. “But that is, of course, in most cases a commercial mistake,” he notes.

The truth is that an imaginatively refreshed and wellmanaged legacy title that has been tried and tested in multiple territories over multiple seasons is still a broadcaster’s safest vehicle. Creatively, it may not be a Ferrari, but chances are it will never break down.

FremantleMedia’s Clark puts it another way: “In all my time in formats, I’ve yet to see anything that’s completely original. What we’re really doing when we talk about being creative is mixing the DNA of shows to produce a strong new hybrid. Just like breeding pigs.”

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Afraid at Discovery. They’re shows that might initially be met with resistance because you can’t say it’s “this” plus “that.” You have to speak a different language because it’s a new form of show. FOX has been super comfortable about that throughout its history—and not just in unscripted. When Matt Groening sat down and started sketching out the idea for an adult cartoon about a dysfunctional family [The Simpsons], people might have looked at him and thought he was mad. When Joel Surnow first suggested a show that would take place over 24 hours in 24 episodes in real time [24], it must have seemed weird and bizarre. But those characters and shows were bought really swiftly. I think the same is true for Idol, actually. Although it existed in other territories in some shape or form for a little while, the idea in America of putting up often bad auditions as your first go at a big new talent show was similarly unusual. So the capacity, the breadth, the appetite to be forward-looking and iconoclastic rather than conservative and safe is an exciting challenge for anyone in any environment. For an unscripted executive who has made a bit of a career doing that, joining FOX was for all intents and purposes an irresistible opportunity.

TV FORMATS: Utopia, one of your first international acquisitions, is certainly seen as a risky undertaking.

How did you first learn of the Dutch show, and what’s been the process of bringing it to the U.S.?

ANDREAE: It launched in Holland in January, and the first couple of nights the ratings were really good. There was a piece in one of the trades saying that there was this show called Utopia and it had launched well. I hadn’t

FOX’S SIMON ANDREAE

By Mansha Daswani

Since its inception, FOX in the U.S. has rarely shied away from trying out new, sometimes controversial, genre-pushing reality concepts. Last year, when the network was in need of a new unscripted programming chief, it found in Simon Andreae an executive with a very similar reputation. A well-known face in the international television community, Andreae’s career has included spells at Optomen Television, Channel 4 and Discovery Channel. As executive VP of alternative entertainment at FOX, he is seeking out compelling concepts from the global market as well as leading development on new titles internally. He gives TV Formats his view on trends in the business and his approach to landing hot properties ahead of the competition.

TV FORMATS: What was it about the FOX brand and the opportunity to lead its alternative programming strategy that appealed to you?

ANDREAE: FOX has always been the organization that is least afraid to take risks, and most comfortable with iconoclasm in generating new forms of unscripted television experiences that the audience is not used to. For me at least, some of the most unexpectedly successful bits of my career have been when I’ve been permitted to develop and program shows that are the first of their kind, from live autopsy at Channel 4 to Naked and

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heard of it before then. Almost as soon as I saw the title, I thought that it would be a great opportunity for us, for a number of reasons. One, the social experiment genre has been warming up in different parts of the world at different speeds and in different ways. Something that had a promise as big as “we’re going to restart the world,” and as simple as a single word that conjures up images of paradise, sounded really interesting. The title sounds aspirational and sophisticated—the word was dreamt up by a 16th-century British social scientist and politician!

[Laughs] I felt that even though it has this broadsheet title, the material would be both super sophisticated— because it’s about law, religion, child-rearing, punishment and so on—but also super tabloid in a narrative sense. It would feed on human drama and human relationships. Even though these people are building a community together, to some extent the show is going to feed off the conflicts between them as they try to agree upon how they’re going to manage different components of their society. And of course it was from John de Mol, who has an unrivalled reputation as a visionary thinker and hit-maker in this field. I read about it and I rang Kevin [Reilly, then FOX’s chairman of entertainment]; he spoke to Peter Rice [chairman and CEO of Fox

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In one of his first buys at FOX, Andreae picked up the Dutch social experiment Utopia, which premiered on the network this fall.

Networks Group], because we knew it would have to be a large investment. You can’t build paradise and only use it for two or three episodes! We knew that Talpa was planning to pitch it in the U.S. in about a week’s time. I told Talpa that I would only hear the pitch if I heard it first, and that we would respond very quickly. I took the pitch, and I liked it very much; I spoke to Peter and Kevin again and said I thought we should buy it. I hopped on a plane to go see John two hours after the pitch meeting; 48 hours later we were each sufficiently confident that it would be a good partnership and that our offer was a good one. All of that happened within a week. It’s a large undertaking, and you never quite know what’s going to be a hit and what isn’t, but when I look around the international broadcast landscape this year, Utopia is still the show that has remained to me the most ingenious and exciting and promising.

TV FORMATS: The Netherlands is a much smaller market than the U.S. How did you go about scaling up the production, and how did you approach the casting process?

ANDREAE: Our site is a little larger than the Dutch site.

There was quite a bit of discussion about whether utopia should be subject to seasonal variety or whether it should be uniseasonal. We decided that we wanted it to be sunny—a bit more redolent of the Garden of Eden, I suppose. Who knows what the weather was like there!

One has this vision that it’s green and there’s a waterfall and people are frolicking around in an environment of some fancy.

In terms of casting, we have about 15 people. We were looking for characters who have strong physical skills that would be useful for creating a utopia—a contractor, a cook, a medic. We also wanted [individuals who have] very strong opinions about at least one of the pillars of creating a new society—law-making, religion, sexuality

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and so on. We’re taking a Socratic position of imagining that those types of things are going to be more productively discussed and more enjoyable to the audience if we have opposing views. I suppose that means the casting will be louder. But I don’t think it’s trashier. We’re trying to provoke debate about the values of a society powerfully and right from the get-go.

TV FORMATS: Since there’s no cash prize at the end, you probably attract a different caliber of contestant than something like Big Brother.

ANDREAE: Yes, that’s true. In Big Brother you can sit around and you have your bed every night and the fridge is stocked with food. In Utopia, you have to construct your own environment and make up all its rules. It attracts people who are skilled, highly motivated and extremely passionate about wanting to start a new world. As I look at the finalists on the casting board as we speak, at least half of the people are ones you would never imagine being on a reality show. Quite a few of them don’t even watch television! [Laughs] They are not your average reality fodder.

TV FORMATS: What are some of the trends you’re seeing in reality programming today?

ANDREAE: We are seeing quite a few thinner slices of a show like Utopia that concentrate on a specific part of the experience—the survival, the battle of the sexes, the religious social experiment, the marriage experiment or the marriage-dissolution experiment. A lot of them are really fun pitches. It’s been difficult for us to acquire any of them because they feel like thinner slices of something we’re already doing. There’s been another trend for game-based formats, where rather than boosting the upside, they boost the downside. What you’re trying to do in a game show is inject stakes. Stakes aren’t just

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MasterChef has been successful on FOX for the last few years, prompting the pickup of MasterChef Junior, now in its second season.

about how much money you can win. Stakes mean the difference between the worst consequence of your actions and the best consequence. In [Who Wants to Be a] Millionaire? the best consequence is a million dollars, and the worst is going home with nothing, which is exactly the same as what you started with. There are bunch of shows, including two we’ve purchased, Boom! and another we haven’t announced yet, where there are cash prizes, but the downside is the perceived harm to the player. Of course all of the games are perfectly safe and nobody is in any physical danger at all, but the perception is that you can win big and you can also lose big.

TV FORMATS: How did you hear about Boom!?

ANDREAE: Keshet has an affiliation in the U.S. with dick clark productions. Allen Shapiro from dick clark had rung me to say, “We’re going to have this cool format, but we really need to present it at MIPTV to all the buyers.” I insisted on meeting him two or three days before MIPTV started, partly because I wasn’t going to MIPTV and partly because I thought he knew that he and Keshet had something good that might be appropriate for us. We met and he told me the title and the rough concept and showed me a one-minute sizzle reel. I thought it was very, very clever in its simplicity, in its stakes and in its visual iconography. We made a straight-to-series offer preemptively. I wanted us to have the best shot at having the most unique show the fastest. We had a couple of days of negotiation over the weekend just before MIPTV started. We closed the deal the night before MIPTV opened.

TV FORMATS: How do you balance what you’re taking from the global market with developing a strong slate of titles your distribution colleagues can then sell worldwide?

ANDREAE: Underneath it all, we want to do our best for the P&L of our parent company. The most effective way to do that is to have hit shows. So what we’re looking for first and foremost and absolutely fundamentally are the best shows from a creative perspective. There are a couple of things we initially needed to think about as well.

One was that we have a slate of very successful shows,

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but most of them have been on air for a little while and for some of them, [ratings] this season are a little lower than last season’s, which were a little lower than those of the season before. So we needed, reasonably swiftly, to be able to buy two or three series in order to help reinvigorate our slate. The quickest way to do that is to take shows that have already been developed, and sometimes already tried on air. It was great for us that Boom! and Utopia already existed, because that probably cut out six months of development work. We did do some creative work on them internally after we bought them, but they were closer to being ready to produce. Having said that, we are developing a lot internally. On those shows, we have a greater share of the back end. So we’re trying to get the best shows from a creative perspective, get some new shows on air fast, and in the long term make sure that our slate is balanced between international import and home-grown IP. TV FORMATS: Since the launch of Rising Star, there’s been a lot of conversation in the format business about how you do live voting and interactivity in countries with multiple time zones. What’s your view on apps and interactive technology when it comes to reality content?

ANDREAE: Live shows are hot. A show like Rising Star that requires the audience to vote all the way through has created an unexpected problem—a lot of viewers found it aggravating to actually have to watch the show live. Even with live shows like Idol, where you have 24 hours to vote, a lot of people don’t [start watching] until half an hour in because they know they can catch up.

Having said that, the technology [Keshet] developed and incorporated into the show was reasonably skillful.

My disappointment is that the first thing that technology was pointed at was yet another singing competition. So, I am really excited about the potential of that app and what it can mean for direct viewer interaction. My own note to self would be, don’t pick something where people are having to [vote live] all the way through the show. And secondly, find a genre or a subject that is [newer] than a singing competition.

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CHIBNALL: I had one in mind because I had spent a lot of time in Northern California and knew the area north of San Francisco quite well. I really thought that this area was quite analogous to the West Country in England [where Broadchurch is set]. When there was interest [in doing the show in the U.S.], my brilliant script executive Sam Hoyle and I spent two weeks in Pacific Grove, which is a small coastal town in California. We talked to a lot of people there. We talked to the editor of the local paper and the police chief and all kinds of people and asked, could this [the plot of the show] happen here? They all said, Oh yeah, it’s far more likely to happen here! There’s such beautiful landscape there. It’s full of interesting people, so that choice of location felt quite straightforward. It was part of my pitch to FOX right at the start; I said [it takes place] here.

TV FORMATS: How did you walk the line between remaining true to the original and creating a show that would feel appropriate for the local audience?

CHIBNALL: A lot of that depends on employing great people and giving them the space to make the show they want to make. So a lot of that [responsibility] was in Anya and Danny’s hands, and they’ve done a great job. We talked and we started from a very similar place, and Gracepoint soon became its own thing.

What I wanted to do was protect the tone and pace and emotional language and visual language of the show, which is very different from a lot of other tele-

CHRIS CHIBNALL

By Anna Carugati

When the crime drama Broadchurch premiered on ITV in the spring of 2013, it quickly became a sensation. In an age of sophisticated special effects, eccentric antiheroes and law-enforcement agents grappling with mental illnesses, the straightforward—yet brilliantly written, well-acted and beautifully shot—investigation into the death of a boy in a small town drew huge audiences and critical acclaim. The show’s success was so great that FOX and Shine America have done a U.S. version called Gracepoint. Creator and writer Chris Chibnall spent time in California to make sure the American series maintained the roots of the British hit while developing into a show of its own.

TV FORMATS: How involved were you with Gracepoint?

CHIBNALL: I was heavily involved in setting it up. I wrote the pilot episode and I spent time with Anya [Epstein] and Danny [Futterman]. We chose them as showrunners because they are terrific writers and producers. I was there throughout that initial process, helping it all come together. Then they took the ball and ran with it. It was a really nice experience. I’m proud of what they’ve done.

TV FORMATS: Did you scout for a location in the U.S., a setting that lent itself to this kind of storytelling?

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vision shows. We wanted to have all that in place and then allow Gracepoint to grow into its own show. You set up the parameters and say, This is what I think is important about the show, and now, within those parameters, make your own thing. That sort of collaboration is really interesting.

As soon as you bring in a new cast and go to a different landscape, everything becomes fresh anyway.

For all the success of Broadchurch for us in the U.K., in America it had a very small audience. It’s not that well known a show publicly, so it presents a great opportunity to do an American version that can speak to the audience there.

In addition, there are two extra episodes in Gracepoint.

It happens quite organically. It has a movement away from the original; it’s a really nice thing to behold.

TV FORMATS: Having worked and produced for both American and British television, what are the main differences between the two production systems?

CHIBNALL: In the American system, the machinery and the industry are paramount. And it’s how you get your idea through that system unscathed that is a challenge, whether that is at a network level or cable level. In the

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After the global success of Shine International’s Broadchurch, FOX in the U.S. signed up for its own version, Gracepoint.

U.K., it is slightly more of a cottage industry and everything has a slightly smaller scale. What you tend to have is a slightly more authored environment where there is less industrial structure to the process here. You can craft these slightly smaller, very bespoke series.

Obviously the big difference is the number of episodes ordered. Eight episodes for Broadchurch is a huge order for ITV, whereas in the U.S. eight episodes is a very, very small order. You don’t have writing rooms in the same way [in the U.K.], although some people have tried it. I like writing in a room. I think it’s a really good system, particularly on episodic stuff. There are more lone writers here in the U.K. TV FORMATS: There are a lot of Brits coming to work in the U.S. and a lot of Americans going to the U.K. CHIBNALL: What’s happened in the last five years is that the world has become so much smaller in that shows are traveling more and people involved with the shows are traveling more. It feels like the talent pool is much more interchangeable, and that’s really exciting. There is a bit more cross-pollination going on in a very exciting way.

I’ve spoken to a lot of American writers and they are jealous of our shows, and if you speak to a lot of British writers, we’re all jealous of American shows, so there’s a sense that the grass is always greener!

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TV FORMATS: You began your career writing for the stage.

CHIBNALL: Yes, I started in fringe theater in London writing for audiences in a room above a pub in southwest London. That’s where I did my unpaid apprenticeship, if you like. I was a writer in residence at a fringe theater and was supported by the artistic director there, who is really responsible for my career—a guy named Martin Richards. I owe him everything. He said, Well, we can’t pay you anything, but if you can write plays, we’ll put them on. I’d write them and then sit in with the audience; I learned what worked and what didn’t and what landed and what missed. Then I got an agent from that and began to work in television as well as theater. It all took off from there.

TV FORMATS: I imagine there are different challenges and satisfactions writing for the stage and writing for television.

CHIBNALL: Yes, in theater I tended to do more comedy.

Actually, I just had a comedy at the Salisbury Playhouse called Worst Wedding Ever earlier this year about a disastrous wedding. There is something really joyous about writing a two-hour event where people are just laughing and laughing. That feels very rewarding, but it’s about as polar opposite from Broadchurch as you can get!

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TV FORMATS: In the original Scandinavian series, Bron, the female detective, Saga, has a strong, somewhat off-putting personality, and it took a while for the audience to warm up to her. Did the same thing happen in the The Tunnel and in The Bridge?

BLOMGREN: We had the same reaction in all three versions. I remember when we talked about actor Diane Kruger’s portrayal of Detective Sonya Cross in the The Bridge, they were a bit afraid that she would have the same effect, but apparently it worked out. The ratings were good in the U.S. TV FORMATS: What kind of local elements did you have to add to the English-French version, The Tunnel?

How did the show have to change to adapt for its British and French commissioning broadcasters?

BLOMGREN: The English one is closer to the Scandinavian version than the American one. The writers and producers of The Tunnel changed the show in a very clever way. The first discussion was whether Saga should be English or French. That was a long and very interesting discussion. It ended up with her being French and actress Clémence Poésy cast as detective Elise Wassermann.

[The writers made some very interesting adaptations]—in Sweden, [the characters] have a conflict with [homeless] people living in the streets, the French have conflicts with illegal immigrants.

They kept the same structure to the show, but they added value. I was so amazed by [the changes they made]. If you look at The Tunnel and compare it to Bron, they actually added value in every single episode.

THE BRIDGE ’S LARS BLOMGREN

By Anna Carugati

The Scandinavian crime drama Bron was such a hit throughout Europe that Filmlance, the production company that produced it, and its parent company, the Shine Group, have co-produced two other versions of the show: The Tunnel, for Sky Atlantic and CANAL+, and The Bridge, for FX in the U.S. Both remained faithful to the premise of the original show: a dead body is found in a location that connects two countries. In the British-French version, the body was found in the Channel Tunnel, and in the American version, the body was on the border between the U.S. and Mexico. At the core of all three series is the relationship between a female detective from one country and a male one from the other. Lars Blomgren, the executive producer of Bron, talks to TV Formats about the nuanced differences between the three series.

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TV FORMATS: The Tunnel is an English-French bilingual show, a first for both British and French television.

BLOMGREN: With Bron, we decided from the start never to make an issue out of the language problem.

We just claimed that the Swedes speak Danish and the Danish speak Swedish and that they understand each other all the time. While The Tunnel did the opposite. The differences between the two languages add a lot of humor to the series. Even the first time [the detectives] meet they joke about their differences. They stayed quite loyal to the original show and then they added a lot of value, and they did it in a very clever way. We never used the language as an element in the series and they added a much more comic level than we ever used, and I really appreciated that.

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TV FORMATS: Did a lot of changes have to be made for the American audience?

BLOMGREN: They used the same structure, but it’s completely different to portray a rich country and a poor country. France and England and Sweden and Denmark are fairly equal.

But if you look at Mexico and the U.S., they are the opposite of one another.

And the level of violence in The Bridge is greater than in Bron or The Tunnel.

There is no comparison. For us to lock kids into a bus, that’s terrifying. The producers of The Bridge had to go in different directions.

It’s interesting, we had a conference in New York with the creative teams from all three shows and sat down for two days to talk. If you compare the key scenes in all three shows they are almost the same, for example in the first season when Martin’s son is killed. The three shows go in slightly different directions, but in the end they close the circle at the same point.

The biggest difference is that the American writers finish the original story in episode ten but then continue for three more, which was a new thing for me. They had their reasons to do it, and it worked well. I keep coming back to the fact that remakes can be a challenge: you have the original version, but at some point you will lose control. I am part of Shine and in doing The Tunnel I had the Kudos guys and [Kudos chief executive] Jane Featherstone, and they are brilliant TV makers. And for The Bridge there was Carolyn Bernstein [executive VP of scripted programming at Shine America] and her team, so we were all good friends from the start.

TV FORMATS: Are there other local versions in the works?

BLOMGREN: I’ve had suggestions from maybe 20 different territories, from South America, Asia, Russia, Ukraine, Italy, Albania, all possible versions.

We just said we would put a hold on them until the American and English versions play out. It’s difficult enough with the two English-language versions, but this fall we are in serious talks with a Korean [producer] to do a North and South Korean version. I find that absolutely mind-blowing, so that is something that I really want to be involved with. That would be different!

The Swedish-Danish Bron, repped by ZDF Enterprises (top), has spawned two successful adaptations that are part of the Shine International slate: the British-French The Tunnel (middle) and FX’s The Bridge (bottom), set on the border between the U.S. and Mexico.

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FORMAT TRENDSETTER

AWA R D S For some 15 years, shows based on formats have been holding prized prime-time slots on broadcast outlets large and small all around the world. What started with Big Brother, Survivor and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? evolved into Idols, Deal or No Deal, Got Talent and Come Dine with Me, with many more to follow. Today, there are countless categories of formats: reality, competition, adventure, endurance, singing, dancing, dating, cooking and on and on. From large-scale, big-budget shiny-floor shows to more modestly budgeted yet consistently reliable shows with proven track records in numerous territories, formats take the risk out of producing and programming.

In acknowledgement of this vital segment of the television industry, World Screen, in partnership with MIPCOM, is launching the Format Trendsetter Awards to honor four individuals who have contributed to this very important area of the business. The honorees represent markets big and small: Phil King from CTV in Canada, Merrily Ross from the pan-European Modern Times Group (MTG), Anette Romer from TV 2 in Denmark, and Ran Telem from Israel’s Keshet Broadcasting. All are keen to innovate and offer viewers shows they haven’t seen elsewhere.

These four television professionals will take part in the Formats Superpanel: What Do Buyers Want?

session at MIPCOM on Wednesday, October 15, from 3:15 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. in Auditorium Esterel of the Palais des Festivals. World Screen’s group editorial director, Anna Carugati, will moderate a lively discussion that will focus on identifying ideas that can travel and executing them in the most entertaining and often groundbreaking ways.

“Given the ever-increasing importance of formats for programmers across the globe, we felt it was time to create the Format Trendsetter Awards,” says Ricardo Guise, the president and publisher of World Screen.

“These executives have the difficult task of spotting innovative ideas amid the sea of formats available on the market. We look forward to celebrating their discerning tastes with this award.”

“We are delighted to partner with World Screen for the launch of the Format Trendsetter Awards to honor key members of the formats community for their contribution to the international TV industry,” adds Laurine Garaude, the director of the TV division at Reed MIDEM. “This new initiative, alongside the now established Content Trendsetter Awards, underscore the evergrowing importance of acquisition and programming professionals in creating global successes, and MIPCOM and MIPTV’s essential roles as the definitive international markets for scripted and unscripted programming.”

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F O R M AT T R E N D S E T T E R AWA R D S RAN TELEM

PHIL KING

VP of Programming, Keshet Broadcasting, Israel

President of CTV, Sports and Entertainment Programming, Bell Media, Canada

Israel has emerged as a hothouse of ideas for both scripted and non-scripted shows. The Israeli broadcaster that is leading the pack with innovative programming ideas is Keshet Broadcasting. From the drama Hatufim, which became Homeland, to the singing competition Rising Star, with its accompanying app that allows viewers from home to vote in real time, Keshet has been providing international broadcast, cable and satellite networks with a wide range of formats. Keshet is also the home in Israel to some of the world’s biggest format brands.

Ran Telem has been VP of programming since 2007 and has been at the heart of importing major international brands as well as exporting Keshet formats around the world.

Canadian viewers can choose from a wide range of programming. Since Canada borders the United States, American network fare spills into Canadian territory every day and night of the week. Canadian broadcasters must comply with quotas and make sure that 50 percent of their schedules air homegrown programming. And of course, the best international entertainment formats also find slots on broadcast networks and specialty channels. CTV is the marketleading network. Phil King, president of CTV, sports and entertainment programming, makes sure that scripted series are accompanied by top unscripted shows, such as The Amazing Race Canada, the most-watched Canadian series on record; MasterChef Canada and many more, on CTV and sister network CTV Two.

ANETTE ROMER

MERRILY ROSS

Head of Acquisitions and Formats, TV 2 Danmark, Denmark

VP of Formats and Content, Modern Times Group

Denmark may be a small country, with a population of only 5.6 million comprising 2.5 million households, but viewers in those homes are a demanding bunch. They are open to new ideas and tire quickly of any show they deem derivative. For such a small market, Danish viewers have plenty of choice. TV 2 is the market leader. It operates the main channel TV 2 as well as TV 2 Zulu, TV 2 Charlie, TV 2 Fri, TV 2 Film, TV 2 News and the on-demand platform TV 2 Play.

Anette Romer has been in TV 2’s acquisition department since 1990. She was appointed head of acquisitions and formats in 2007 and for the past seven years she has been buying product for the entire bouquet of channels.

The Modern Times Group (MTG) operates free-TV channels in Scandinavia, the Baltics, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Ghana and Tanzania. Merrily Ross is responsible for sourcing international formats from producers and distributors for all those territories except for Africa. Ross has spent nearly 20 years in television, first in on-air presentation, then production, then in ITV Studios’ distribution business, before joining MTG in 2013. In addition to working with established formats, she is always looking for new, original content, even if it’s at an early stage of development. She is particularly interested in formats that can work in access prime or prime time and preferably skewing toward a female audience.

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TV FORMATS: How has the company adapted to keep pace with these changes in consumer behavior?

ARMOZA: We know that everyone everywhere is now a content generator, and this is reflected in our new primetime studio game show The People’s Choice, which, in a simple, quick and fun way goes one step further than audience engagement. Developed in partnership with France’s TF1, The People’s Choice tests how well we know our nation by presenting viewers with the most trending, thought-provoking and entertaining dilemmas: a week without showering or without their smartphone?

World peace or $1 million? Once the nation has chosen, participants must guess what the entire country chose.

It’s open to everyone; not only can the whole nation play, but everyone who does also has the chance to win cash prizes. The ability to not only create the content but also to win money as you play, definitely takes the viewer experience to a much richer level than we’ve seen elsewhere.

For me, the real strength of this format is that it translates the essential experience of social media to the medium of TV—allowing you to generate elements of the show’s content, and showing you how you compare to everyone else— providing the instant validation that has virtually become an inherent need for most of us.

Armoza Formats’

AVI ARMOZA

By Kristin Brzoznowski

It has been almost a decade since Avi Armoza founded Armoza Formats as a venture to represent original ideas from Israel. Today, the company that Armoza runs as CEO is one of the leading independents in the format business, representing a portfolio of titles from his home market and beyond. He tells TV Formats about keeping pace with trends in this fast-changing marketplace.

TV FORMATS: What are the greatest changes you’ve seen in the format landscape over the last decade?

ARMOZA: When we started out, we were one of many independent companies. Over the past few years, the industry has become more consolidated, with Armoza one of the few remaining independents. We see this as a strong advantage, both creatively and in business, because it gives us the flexibility to work with everyone, to respond quickly and creatively, and to take risks. The industry has also become a lot more open to formats from across the world in all genres. There’s also been a big change in consumer behavior. We live in an age when our audiences are no longer satisfied with passively consuming the content we put in front of them. They are used to giving their own opinions and creating their own content; in short, they are used to influencing the world around them.

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TV FORMATS: How is Armoza Formats building ties with talented creators and producers?

ARMOZA: I see it as our responsibility to stimulate creativity in the industry and establish platforms for this creativity to emerge. We do this in several ways. One of them is our annual format competition, Formagination, where we work with industry professionals and the general public to give everyone a chance to develop their ideas into formats, and partner with top international broadcasters to join forces and make these formats happen. Similarly, our TV by the People platform gave everyone the chance to develop and contribute to format ideation. We want creators and partners to feel that they can always come to us with their new ideas, and to this end we’ve also always been very proactive in initiating relationships.

I think that to really become synonymous with creativity, you have to be willing to take risks and invest in ideas you believe in. Our launch of I Can Do That! worked in just that way. We felt its potential from the first one-liner and immediately went forward with it. It was a very rewarding feeling to see the show consistently win the night on Italy’s Rai 1 and to be working closely with a major U.S. network to launch it in America in the spring of 2015.

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PROPERTY PROFILE something completely different,” says Suzanne Kendrick, the head of formats sales at BBC Worldwide. “The celebrities will be embarking on a grueling training regimen to learn how to perform acrobatic and gymnastic routines.

They will be totally out of their comfort zone, but the end result will be spectacular entertainment for viewers sprinkled with plenty of glamour and thrills.”

Having celebrities at the center of the show helps up the allure, notes Kendrick.

“Celebrities can make a format much more appealing because viewers get to see the ‘real’ person rather than their character,” she says. “Throughout the show and especially when performing live or when they are pushing their bodies during training, the audience will get a glimpse of each celebrity’s individuality and determination and will go on the journey with them as they try and overcome their challenges.”

The format is playing in prime time on Saturday night in the U.K. on BBC One, and Kendrick believes it’s perfectly suited for prime-time slots globally as well. “Tumble is being brought to us by the same BBC team behind Strictly Come Dancing in the U.K., so we know to expect high-end production values and a show that will bring family and friends together.”

TUMBLE

By Kristin Brzoznowski

The celebrity entertainment show Tumble is the latest in a long line of shiny-floor formats for BBC Worldwide. Produced

by BBC Productions, the series sees ten celebrities being pushed to their physical limits in a range of gymnastic and circus-inspired disciplines. The stars are paired with a professional gymnast/performer and compete live in areas such as aerial hoop, acrobatic floor and trampoline. The routines are fully choreographed with bespoke music, lighting, costumes and special effects. A diverse judging panel of experts then scores the performances.

Alex Jones hosts the 6x80-minute U.K. version, while an experienced gymnastics commentator covers all the action.

The panel features head judge and legendary Olympic gymnast Nadia Comaneci, world-renowned cirque artist/aerial performer Sebastien Stella and British champion gymnasts Louis Smith and Craig Heap. Each show also includes a performance from a world-famous circus troupe or gymnastics team. BBC Worldwide is launching the format at MIPCOM for the global market.

“In the past, we have seen celebrities take part in singing and dancing competitions, but now we want to see them do

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BBC Worldwide has a number of big, shiny-floor formats in its catalogue that have been successful. This type of format, though often more expensive to produce, has the potential to generate big buzz and big ratings for broadcasters. “Audiences look for some sort of escapism when watching television and even more so during cashstrapped times,” says Kendrick. “People want to sit down with friends and family to watch great content and be entertained, and a show like Tumble is everything you need from a big shiny-floor format; it is a family TV show bringing together music, glamour, celebrities and competition inspired by the world of circus and gymnastics.”

Kendrick adds, “BBC Worldwide has a history of delivering entertaining and passionate TV formats to global audiences, and Tumble will very easily complement our other big, shiny-floor shows such as Dancing with the Stars. We pride ourselves on having a varied catalogue, which allows buyers to tailor content to suit their audiences. Ultimately, a successful format comes down to great TV entertainment that is inclusive, passionate and appealing to audiences everywhere.”

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