every part of that spinning globe. Formats, it seems, are the new black. But can all formats be made? And if not, what are the likely causes of a failure to get past the starting post? And, were there any in the past that failed for reasons which would now not bar their success? VideoAge decided to find out. In the view of Rob Clark, senior executive vice president, Worldwide Entertainment, Entertainment and Production at the U.K.’s FremantleMedia Enterprises, “What can or cannot be done with a format very much depends on what that format is.” Whereas for Michel Rodrigue, CEO of Canada’s Distraction Formats, “In a sense all formats are doable, because if an idea is not doable then it really isn’t a format. After all, a significant part of formats’ attraction is that they work! But,” he conceded, “If an idea that is otherwise a great format idea is going to fail, it will almost certainly be because of the cost.” This is a view very much shared by Jennifer Harrington, head of Formats and Entertainment at U.K.-based Granada Television International. Cost, believes Harrington, “is the most obvious inhibitor to a format’s rollout.” By way of illustration, Harrington cited the Granada format, I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here. Although successful in the U.K., where it is now in its eighth season, it has not, she revealed, “been massively successful internationally, purely because it is such an expensive show to make. The cost of making it effectively confines the show to major markets and even then territories such as Germany trim some of the more expensive games such as jumping out of helicopters, despite the format’s runaway success on RTL. Although,” said Harrington, “we are looking at the possibility of ‘packaging’ markets. For instance, we have just signed a deal with Zodiak for a panScandinavian version.” In fact, that version, which will be shot in Mexico, makes the show possible by using a “carousel” production in which the various local versions share a common set and key production equipment. This will be handled by Zodiak Line Productions, a new entity just launched at MIP-TV, and, said head of Formats and Acquisitions, Sarah Coursey, “Zodiak Line Productions will go beyond Scandinavia and offer this means of producing ambitious shows at a price that conforms to individual markets, to Zodiak Group companies, producers and other broadcasters worldwide.” To explain the importance of the cost factor in a format’s international rollout, Harrington highlighted the success of Granada’s Come Dine With Me . “When I first saw the show,” she recalled, “I was bowled over by it, in part because it had received no hype at all, and I hadn’t heard of it. But it has gone on to rack up sales in numerous territories including the U.S., France and Germany, where it has run to over 500 episodes on Vox and has even spawned a spin-off. Which,” she concluded, “illustrates that a format can be very successful without necessarily being large, expensive and headlinegrabbing.” Harrington’s earlier illustration of the difficulty of scaling back the production of I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here, is echoed by Distraction’s Rodrigue, who recalled his experience with an Italian format, Il Protagonista. “We picked up Il Protagonista from Magnolia, which had placed it with [TV network] Italia Uno. It was a great idea involving major stunts, such as convincing some guy that his girlfriend had been kidnapped. But,” said Rodrigue, “it was too difficult and too costly to do, and there was no realistic way of scaling it back.” Indeed Rodrigue believes that, “one of the major advantages game show formats have over reality is that they are almost always studio-based and the real cost is just in the prize, and there is not ever a problem in scaling that back!” However, there was at one time a problem in scaling that element up. Rob Clark of FremantleMedia recalled that, “in the past, there would have been no way Who Wants To Be a Millionaire could have played in the U.K. as, until the late ’90s, there was a cap of £20,000 (U.S.$40,000) on the amount of money that could be offered as a prize.” Nor is that the only hit format that would not have made it to the screen in times past. “Shows such as Idol and [the similar] X-Factor,” continued Clark, “could not have been made, because camera technology and lighting rigs were simply not up to it. And,” he went on, “Big Brother is another format that would not have been possible because it demands a channel that can stream, and even then, before the arrival of editing system Avid, a daily strip like this would have been impossible to edit. In the past, the rule was you shot as little as possible and used it wisely; now, you can shoot as much as you like and the use made of it is not always that wise.” Technology was also the cause of the demise of Distraction format All Against One. This format has one player based in a studio playing against the TV audience, who enter their responses via computer. “When it was first launched,” recalled Rodrigue, “the system simply couldn’t handle the volume of computer traffic generated and it crashed. Now, however, the technology exists to handle that level of traffic and we are, in fact, relaunching it with TVP Poland.” And while technology appears to offer new opportunities to develop formats, for instance through the use of UGC (user generated content) from mobile phones, such as what website www.quik.com is already doing, there is a range of problems with this idea. For a start, there is the technical issue of sound and picture quality. This, for now at least, is a major issue and would be difficult to deal with. But it is not the only issue. Even if the originators of the material are happy to put the material into the public domain, this does not mean that they are entitled to put it into the public domain. Anyone appearing in such footage would have to give their permission, which explains all the family members and pets on clip shows such as You’ve Been Framed. And any background music would also have to be cleared. Problems such as these aside, both Rodrigue and Clark were pretty unanimous in what they look for in a format. “For a format to really stand out,” suggested Rodrigue, “it has to be clean, simple and easy; everyone has to get it the first time. It also has to be fresh, and that’s tough. Ideas that are simple, fresh, clean and that work, are not that easy to come up with.” On the other hand, formats are a genre that are subject, more than anything else, to “push the envelope” syndrome, and, if potentially popular, one suspects that neither money, technology nor legal matters could stop one from being made. BJ V I D E O • A G E JU N E 2 0 0 8 (Continued from Cover) Formats 30 El Factor, Colombia’s version of The X Factor Granada’s Come Dine With Me
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTI4OTA5