TV Formats MIPTV 2015

TVFORMATSInteractive Formats / Cooking Competitions / NBC’s Paul Telegdy

Jane the Virgin’s Gina Rodriguez & Jennie Snyder Urman

MIPFORMATS & MIPTV EDITIONWWW.TVFORMATS.WS APRIL 2015

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The BlameGame

Buyers around the world, from networks big and small,have been citing an absence of innovation in the format mar-ket for a few years now. Many claim that the shows they’rebeing pitched at the markets and meetings throughout theyear are more derivative than they are daring. There are, indeed, many clones (and clones of those clones)

when it comes to today’s crop of formats. Whether it’ssinging, dancing or dating, there can only be so many suc-cessful variations out there before fatigue starts to set in.Judging from the lower ratings for what were some of thebiggest entertainment franchises of years past, this mayalready be the case. But who’s really to blame here? Buyerswill tell you that producers just aren’t being innovativeenough. From their perspective, the formats they’re beingoffered are more like spin-offs of existing ideas. Producersand distributors, on the other hand, have argued that buyersare simply not willing to take risks. Many report that whenthey approach a buyer with something that’s original andinventive, they’re typically shot down. The out-of-the-boxformat concepts, perceived as riskier bets, are passed over forsomething safe (and perhaps stale). Regardless of which side is actually to blame—though it’s

likely a bit from column A and a bit from column B—it’s clearthat the format landscape is hungry for a global hit. Butmaybe it doesn’t have to be this elusive “next big thing”everybody seems to be talking about but nobody can get theirhands on. Perhaps the industry should be looking for the“next small thing,” a simple, quiet idea that, when managedproperly, can work in numerous international territories. In this issue of TV Formats, we explore interactivity and

weigh in on whether or not digital extensions can re-energizethe landscape. Another feature examines how new twists oncooking-competition formats are helping to revitalize thegenre. We hear from NBC’s Paul Telegdy, who is continu-ously scouting for the best new concepts in the global mar-ketplace. TV Formats also interviews Jane the Virgin starGina Rodriguez and showrunner Jennie Snyder Urman abouthow this show, based on a Venezuelan telenovela, has res-onated with U.S. audiences. While all of this finger pointing hasn’t exactly advanced the

cause, perhaps it will encourage producers, distributors andbuyers to take more risks. —Kristin Brzoznowski

Ricardo Seguin GuisePublisher

Anna CarugatiEditor

Mansha DaswaniExecutive Editor

Kristin BrzoznowskiManaging Editor

Joanna PadovanoAssociate Editor

Joel MarinoAssistant Editor

Simon WeaverOnline Director

Victor L. CuevasProduction & Design Director

Phyllis Q. BusellArt Director

Faustyna HariaszSales & Marketing Manager

Dana MattisonSales & Marketing Coordinator

Erika SantanaSales & Marketing Assistant

Terry AcunzoBusiness Affairs Manager

Ricardo Seguin GuisePresident

Anna CarugatiExecutive VP &

Group Editorial Director

Mansha DaswaniAssociate Publisher & VP of

Strategic Development

TV Formats© 2015 WSN INC.

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Phone: (212) 924-7620Fax: (212) 924-6940

Website:www.tvformats.ws

CONTENTS

12 TV FORMATS

40NBC’sPaul Telegdy

INTERVIEWS

46Jane the Virgin’sGina RodriguezPlus: ShowrunnerJennie Snyder Urman

FEATURES

24 TALKING BACKIs interactivity in formats just another buzz-word or a critical component?

32 HOT!Broadcasters across the globe are hungryfor new twists on the cooking-competitiongenre.

50 GOT TALENTA case study of the megahit entertainmentformat from FremantleMedia.

24

The groans from the creative industryregarding fresh format concepts—or, thelack thereof—are becoming louder.

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There are two new shiny-floor studio formats that ArmozaFormats is promoting for MIPTV: Babushka and Yum Factor.Babushka is a high-risk game show that Armoza Formatsdeveloped in partnership with Ryan Seacrest Productionsand France’s TF1. Yum Factor is a cooking format in whichcontestants must guess which juror liked their dish themost, after only seeing his/her reaction to tasting the foodbut not hearing anything they said. “The combination oftesting your skills in the kitchen with how well you can readpeople’s reactions to your food makes Yum Factor anintriguing experience,” says Avi Armoza, the CEO of ArmozaFormats. I Can Do That!, which has already notched upnumerous sales, will be on offer as well.

Armoza FormatsBabushka / Yum Factor / I Can Do That!

Yum Factor

“We arebringingstrong new

titles thatwill refresh primetime with a uniquetake on viewingexperiences thatwill keep surprisingthe audience.”

—Avi Armoza

Promising a fresh take on the traditional game show, You’reBack in the Room sees five contestants engaging in a series ofsimple games, though all participants have been hypnotized.“It’s unlike anything that we’ve seen before, with broad prime-time appeal for a family audience,” says Kate Phillips, BBCWorldwide’s creative director for formats. “It’s heartwarming,feel-good and, most of all, very funny.” BBC Worldwide is alsopresenting format buyers with the quiz show The Edge, whichcombines general knowledge with physical gameplay. “It’shigh-volume, highly strippable entertainment that can easilybe scaled up for prime time [by featuring] celebrities,” saysPhillips. The Big Painting Challenge is a competition for ama-teur painters, who will face different artistic trials.

BBC WorldwideYou’re Back in the Room / The Edge / The Big Painting Challenge

The Big Painting Challenge

312 World Screen 4/15

“The Big PaintingChallenge is a compelling, character-driven

and inspiring showthat brings the worldof art to prime-timeschedules in anentertaining andengaging way.”

—Kate Phillips

Two men try to find ingredients to use while living in asecluded countryside in Three Meals a Day, which is part ofCJ E&M Corporation’s formats slate for MIPTV. “Putting thefamiliar and comfortable city life behind them, the hosts areexpected to be the source of much entertainment as theystruggle to search for food in the [wilderness] without receiv-ing any help,” says Diane Min, the company’s senior salesmanager. “Viewers will be able to enjoy watching the two citybachelors fight to survive in a place that seemingly has noth-ing.” Also being promoted by CJ E&M are I Can See YourVoice, which Min describes as “an ear-catching, music-entertainment format with a mysterious twist,” and TheDish of the Nation, a cooking competition.

CJ E&M CorporationThree Meals a Day / I Can See Your Voice / The Dish of the Nation

Three Meals a Day

“We areexcited to

present thesethree formatsthat have neverbeen [shown]anywhere.”

—Diane Min

14 TV FORMATS

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It’s Showtime


16 TV FORMATS

Women of all ages and backgrounds are invited to take part inthe FremantleMedia format The Most Beautiful Woman,which promotes confidence, self-esteem and inner beauty.“Classic global formats need transferable content, and this for-mat has an appeal that transcends cultural and geographicboundaries,” says Rob Clark, FremantleMedia’s director ofglobal entertainment. “The 21st-century concept of innerbeauty, and a beauty which has many faces, will resonate withviewers, sponsors and broadcasters across the world. The for-mat is positive, engaging, uplifting and really showcases beautyas something that is more than just skin deep.” Chef on theBlock sees professional chefs put their reputations on the line.“Chef on the Block appeals to three clear global trends: food,humor and regionalism,” Clark says. “This format is entertain-ing and funny, and it showcases a range of both gastronomicdelights and regional delicacies. It’s a very positive format withlots of different characters, a good competition element andhumor at its heart.” 10 Questions You Wouldn’t Ask on a FirstDate is a reality dating quiz show. “Dating with a difference isbig news at the moment,” says Clark. “This format is hugelyentertaining and is sure to have audiences squirming in theirseats as they put themselves in the shoes of the contestants. It’sfun, at times shocking and totally addictive, so I’m certain it’sgoing to be a big hit with audiences and broadcasters.”

FremantleMediaThe Most Beautiful Woman / Chef on the Block / 10 Questions You Wouldn’t Ask on a First Date

Global Agency is positioning It’s Showtime as “the next bigthing in singing competitions,” according to CEO IzzetPinto. “It is a unique show with its voting system. For thevery first time, contestants will judge each other in a singingshow.” The title was launched at DISCOP Istanbul, where itreceived “very encouraging feedback,” says Pinto. “It is alively singing talent show that focuses on performers’voices, stage presentation, song selection and styling. It isfull of live music performances, where the stage is set up asa nightclub or pub concept. It really has innovation andoriginality. If you provide something different, I believe theaudience will always follow you.” Pinto also believes thatStairway to Fame will impress buyers with its innovativevisual structure. “The key point that distinguishes the for-mat from other singing talent shows is that the contestantsappear behind a frosted panel in the first stage,” he says.“They get their first votes from the judges according to theirvoice performance alone. It is truly a niche of creativity andit is clear that it will win enthusiastic audiences in manyterritories.” The quiz show Joker is getting a renewed pushfrom Global Agency. Pinto says that the unique and fast-paced gameplay makes it a “real emotional roller coaster foreach contestant and makes each episode a different story.”

It’s Showtime / Stairway to Fame / Joker

“Our objective is to appeal to a variety of demands byproviding products targeted to different audiences andbudget requirements with our selective catalogue.”

—Izzet Pinto

Chef on the Block

“We are a connected, creative, global company that cares passionately about the global brands weproduce and has confidence in the new formats thatwe are bringing to this market.” —Rob Clark

Global Agency

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How have humans changed since the Stone Age? That is thequestion that is asked in 10,000 BC, which looks on as 20men and women give up modern-day luxuries to experiencewhat life was like for our ancestors. “10,000 BC is a uniqueand compelling social experiment that brings history to life,making viewers all over the world think about everything wetake for granted in the 21st century,” says Mike Beale, ITVStudios’ executive VP of global development and formats.ITV Studios Global Entertainment is highlighting that for-mat for MIPTV buyers, alongside Get Your Act Together,featuring celebrities attempting to master variety acts, andKeep It in the Family, in which three generations of twofamilies compete in a series of challenges.

ITV Studios Global Entertainment

Get Your Act Together

“Get Your ActTogether is a fun

Saturday nightentertainmentshow that thewhole family canenjoy together.”

—Mike Beale

At MIPTV, distributor MediaBiz is offering a slate of new for-mats developed by Argentina’s Pol-ka Producciones. The com-pany’s catalogue is made up of telenovelas and series that havefound success in Argentina, with many of them alreadyadapted in other territories. “Without a doubt, Latin Americais an important market for the distribution of our catalogue,”says Alex Lagomarsino, the CEO of MediaBiz. “In regard to [thecreators we represent], they’ve been able to develop originalideas for various TV channels across Latin America throughoutall these years.” Among MediaBiz’s highlights are Brave Girls,about a group of women who become close friends after losingall their money; the drama Shysters, which follows the mem-bers of a ruthless law firm; and the dramatic comedy Only You.

MediaBizBrave Girls / Shysters / Only You

Only You


“Our catalogue

relies ontelenovela and seriesformats from all genres that havebeen successful in Argentina.”

—Alex Lagomarsino

Spain’s Secuoya Content Distribution represents the rights forthe programming and formats developed by the companiesof Grupo Secuoya, as well as other Spanish and internationalproducers. Vanessa Palacios, Secuoya Content Distribution’scontent manager, says that the company has been increas-ing its footprint in Latin America. Recently, Secuoyareached a strategic agreement to represent Banijay Inter-national’s catalogue in Peru. At MIPTV, Secuoya is showcas-ing Timebox, a reality show in which messages are placedinside containers and locked away for up to a year; the com-petition series Grupetto, featuring two bike garages from dif-ferent cities; and Something to Celebrate, with each episodecentering on a big celebration.

Secuoya Content DistributionTimebox / Something to Celebrate / Grupetto

Grupetto

“We areasked all the

time for genresthat can be easilyadapted to each territory, and these[MIPTV titles] are avery good exampleof that.”

—Vanessa Palacios

18 TV FORMATS

10,000 BC / Get Your Act Together / Keep It in the Family

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BBC One has a new Saturday night prime-time series inits spring lineup, Prized Apart, which is being sold as aformat by Sony Pictures Television (SPT). “Prized Apart isan adventure game show, which is a brand-new genrethat the market hasn’t seen before,” says Jane Dockery, thesenior VP of international distribution for formats at SPT.“Mark Linsey, the controller of entertainment commis-sioning at the BBC, described it as a potential ‘gamechanger.’ We’re hugely excited about this title.” SPT is alsopresenting the game show Win Your Wish List, whichcomes with a proven track record of ratings success in theU.K., and Man V Fly, originally commissioned as a pieceof online content.

Sony Pictures TelevisionPrized Apart / Win Your Wish List / Man V Fly

Man V Fly

Founded in 2013, Studio Glam is a relatively young companythat has been steadily building up its catalogue of original for-mats. “Having expanded our collaboration with creators andshowrunners, as well as international production and distri-bution companies, we have developed four new innovativeformats,” says Ilan V. Glam, Studio Glam’s CEO and head ofbusiness development. The Selfie Challenge is a reality gameshow that draws its inspiration from the global phenomenonof the “selfie.” I Spy is a lighthearted thriller game show inwhich contestants turn into spies for a day. Extreme Love isa prime-time dating game show that sees ten men competefor the heart of one woman. Dance with Me brings togetherthe worlds of professional and amateur dancing.

Studio GlamI Spy / The Selfie Challenge / Extreme Love

I Spy


“Studio Glamhas graduallybecome a home

for creators fromall over the world, and we are ready to take this collaborative work method to the next step.”

—Ilan V. Glam

Talpa’s newest variety talent competition, The Puppet Show,shines the spotlight on puppets. “The Puppet Show is a uniquecompetition featuring an entirely new breed of talent,” saysMaarten Meijs, the managing director of Talpa Global. “Theshow appeals to all demographics in all viewer touch points.”The Big Picture sees a player in the studio try to answerpicture-based questions. If they are unsure of the response,the contestant can enlist help from a connected player selectedfrom those playing along in real time with the Big Picture app.Utopia also offers a high degree of interaction. Its online plat-form gives viewers the opportunity to become part of theUtopia community, providing 24/7 access to live streams, pre-mium content and the ability to cast their votes.

Talpa GlobalThe Puppet Show / The Big Picture / Utopia

The Puppet Show

“Everyone’slooking for

content that’s reallydifferent from what’salready out there;these three newtitles [are] just that.”

—Maarten Meijs

20 TV FORMATS

“We really believewe have the rightlineup of shows tomake a big splashin the market.”

—Jane Dockery


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Wild Things


After having long been home to programs from TeleMünchen Group, TM International is now also responsiblefor the international distribution of formats and productionsfrom Odeon Entertainment and the Austrian broadcaster ATV.“This guarantees TM International a regular supply of enter-taining, creative and successful new TV formats,” says CarlosHertel, the head of international sales at TM International.Among these is the reality modeling show for women over30, Catwalk 30+. Hertel says that the format is “totally differ-ent from any other model-casting show, as in each episodethree female candidates aged over 30 compete against eachother for one big modeling job. In the end, only one of themwill get the job and win a modeling-agency contract.” BigStars: Celebrities Lose Weight follows ten celebrities as theywork to slim down, guided by professional nutritionists andhealth experts. “The audience has a front-row seat tocelebrities’ battles with sweaty exercise and healthy diets,which are informative and entertaining,” says Hertel. MostWanted is a dating show in which desirable bachelors finallyfind themselves steady girlfriends. “In each episode, fivecandidates try to conquer the heart of a ‘most wanted’ bach-elor,” Hertel explains. “[Each bachelor] has to weigh hisoptions, since he’s not looking for a flirt, but rather a womanwho will share her life with him.”

TM InternationalCatwalk 30+ / Big Stars: Celebrities Lose Weight / Most Wanted

The high-stakes studio game show Trash or Treasure, inwhich contestants must guess the value of collectibles andantiques, is produced by Mastiff Sweden and distributed byZodiak Rights. After a successful first season on TV4 inSweden, the show was instantly recommissioned, and isnow also in production in Denmark and the Netherlands.Zodiak Rights also has The Secret Life of 4 Year Olds tooffer, from RDF Television. The show was a ratings hit forChannel 4 in the U.K. “It’s a pioneering format, which takesus into the previously unseen world of 4-year-olds,”explains Andrew Sime, the VP of programming and salesfor formats at Zodiak Rights. “It was beautifully made in theU.K., and it’s highly formattable, so we’ve got high hopes forit internationally.” A Danish version was recently commis-sioned, to launch on DR1 in the fall. The family entertain-ment game show Wild Things comes from IWC Media,Mad Monk and GroupM Entertainment for Sky 1 in the U.K.“It’s a big, fun, physical game show, like nothing you’ve everseen before,” says Sime. “Couples work together to try towin a £10,000 prize that lies deep within the ‘Wild Wood.’To do so, they will need to make it through a series of fan-tastic obstacle courses, while one of them is dressed as acute woodland creature [unable to] see a thing.”

Trash or Treasure / The Secret Life of 4 Year Olds / Wild Things

“Zodiak Rights will be taking a wide range of new formats to MIPTV, including game shows,factual entertainment and scripted reality.”

—Andrew Sime

Big Stars: Celebrities Lose Weight

“A reliable partner in fiction for the last seven years,TM International is now expanding its vast portfolio inpartnership with Odeon Entertainment.”

—Carlos Hertel

Zodiak Rights

22 TV FORMATS


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re we on the cusp of a revolution that willre-energize entertainment formats, stem thedrift to digital and bring young audiences backto linear TV? Or is it another case of theemperor’s new clothes?

It’s fair to say that the jury is still out on the question ofinteractivity in formats. Some believe it is an inevitable andindivisible part of the 21st-century entertainment experienceand, as such, will only grow in scope, scale and sophistication.As Ran Telem, the senior VP of content at Keshet MediaGroup—the Israeli company responsible for the breakthroughinteractive format Rising Star—puts it: “A TV show is justlike a close friend or beloved brand. The opportunity to inter-act with it during broadcast and continue interacting with itafterwards is the first hint of an attachment from the viewerto the show. And we like to offer our viewers the best andmost interesting ways to do that.”Others think interactivity works in some genres, some ter-

ritories and some cases. “For young viewers, most of whomnow watch television while using second, even third screens,interactivity is important,” says Izzet Pinto, the CEO of GlobalAgency. “It takes them inside a show and allows them tobecome part of it by answering questions, playing along athome or voting for their favorite act. So we’re seeing that incountries like Brazil, which has a youthful population, inter-activity is an increasingly important factor. But in the U.S.,

say, where the audience for formats skews older, it’s not yeta major consideration.” Then there are others—Eccho Rights’ managing director,

Fredrik af Malmborg, is one—who have yet to be persuadedthat interactivity is more than the latest buzzword from a for-mats industry attempting to reinvent itself as a digital propo-sition. Many entertainment shows are struggling in the onlineworld, af Malmborg points out. “It’s difficult to see how thetraditional game show, for example, can ever be made towork online. Also, drama is now incredibly powerful onlineand, unlike most formats, has inventory value because it canbe watched over and over again. So I think the entertainmentindustry needs to find a completely new format—a new fun-damental idea, if you like—that’s capable of attracting andholding both online and linear-TV audiences. I believe it willhappen and that something revolutionary will come alongand change the whole game, just like Big Brother changedeverything back in the late ’90s. But I’m not convinced that,when it does, it will be interactivity that drives it.”

DIGITAL COMPANIONSSo far, the Eccho Rights format that comes closest to deliv-ering this step change in concept is My 5000 Friends, inwhich a celebrity host has one month to physically meet asmany of his or her Facebook friends as possible. Not only isit a TV show based on the intrinsic interactivity of the social-

Is interactivity in formats just another buzzword or a criticalcomponent? Joanna Stephens investigates.

24 TV FORMATS


Keshet’sRising Star.

TALKING BACK

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media experience, but it also employs interactivity as a nar-rative device. “My 5000 Friends is funny, it’s original and it says a lot

about our social-media-cluttered life,” af Malmborg says of theVeranda Film format, originally produced for SVT Play andSVT1 in Sweden and now being adapted for Belgium, Russiaand the Netherlands. It has also been optioned by ZigZag forthe U.S.

SECOND SCREENINGAf Malmborg makes a distinction between interactivity andthe second screen. The latter, he says, is a “genuine paradigmshift” that will change the whole business of content distri-bution completely and irrevocably. “In five years’ time, alltele vision will be delivered online via tablets, apps and web-sites—and everybody knows that,” he says. “When the sec-ond screen becomes the first screen, entertainment formatswill need to work on all screens, rather than as an add-on toa linear TV set that nobody’s watching any more.”But regardless of screen, entertainment remains a sit-back

experience for the vast majority of viewers, says SimonIngram, co-founder and chief executive of U.K. game-showtechnology pioneer ionoco, whose software solutions haveappeared in such super-formats as Who Wants to Be a Mil-lionaire?, Deal or No Deal and Million Pound Drop. “We tell any client who comes to us with an interactive

concept that if they get 3 percent of their audience to inter-act live with their show, they’ll be doing well—and if they get20 percent, they’ll be doing fabulously well,” Ingram says. “Butthat still means 80 percent of the audience will be sitting pas-sively on the sofa waiting to be entertained, so they had bettermake their show as creatively and editorially exciting as possi-ble. In the end, you can’t make a bad format good with interac-tivity, but it can be used to enhance and enrich a good format.”Like af Malmborg, Ingram believes that the future isn’t

here quite yet in terms of interactivity. But it is coming at usfast, thanks to next-generation technology that can delivertruly live interactivity. He points out that classic formats suchas The X Factor and Got Talent invite viewers to vote viaphone or app throughout the course of a week, revealing the

outcome at a weekend results show. As successful as thishas proved in terms of generating revenue, building creativetension and allowing shows to forge a direct relationship witha segment of their audience, it is a very different propositionto live, in-the-moment interactivity that can instantly impactthe editorial direction and/or outcome. Without getting lost in technical thickets as to why true,

live interactivity has so far proved elusive (“Let’s just say thedigital world isn’t actual real time—it’s a fraction of a secondor so behind real life”), Ingram identifies the “things that cango horribly wrong” with interactivity as scale, timing andinexperience. “What you have to bear in mind,” he says, “isthat if you have 1 million people watching your game showand you tell them to do something, about 40,000 will, all atthe same time. And if you haven’t anticipated that, thechances are your technology or format—and therefore yourshow—will fall over, and fall over very quickly.”

TECH INTEGRATIONAlso coming at interactivity from both a technical and cre-ative standpoint is Eli Uzan, the CEO of Screenz, the cross-media pioneer and “next-generation production company”that created the interactive technology behind Keshet’s RisingStar. The 33-year-old Israeli, himself something of a rising starin digital circles, agrees that the entertainment world is under-going a tectonic shift as digital disrupts and expands thebedrock of the industry.It is not just that the players in the game are changing,

Uzan maintains, but that the whole game is changing. Hisadvice is succinct: stop fighting it and start preparing for it.“Maybe right now, [digital] is not the bread and butter ofbroadcasters, distributors and production companies,” headds. “But it’s just a matter of two, three or four more yearsuntil it will be their main game.”Screenz’s response to the technological challenge of

simultaneous mass-audience interaction is the Real TimePlatform, designed to enable a two-way conversationbetween broadcasters and users, and capable of handlingup to 2.8 million interactions per second and up to 100 milliona minute. The technology made its market debut in Rising

26 TV FORMATS

Armoza Formats isoffering a digital support package forThe People’s Choice,a social-media-drivenformat.



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Star—and made headlines in the process by pioneering real-time voting by viewers via a mobile app integrated into theshow. For the first time in a talent format, viewers couldjudge acts and see the results of their votes instantly onscreen, while broadcasters could register, count, analyze anddisplay live statistics during broadcast.But for all of Rising Star’s technical wizardry, Keshet’s Telem

stresses that it evolved not from the desire to create an inter-active show, “but from the craving to tell the story of a showthat searches for a star in a new and groundbreaking way.” This,he adds, is always Keshet’s guiding principle when devising anew concept. “We don’t believe in the words ‘interactiveshow,’ ” he says. “A show is always interactive, whether [theviewer is] holding a second screen or ‘just’ watching and beingtantalized by the screen. When we are developing, we put our-selves in the shoes—or better still, imagine being at the finger-tips—of viewers and try to think about what we would like toknow/do/react while we experience the show.”The trick, Telem adds, is to find each show’s right “engine

for interaction.” In a cooking format, for example, food and/orthe desire for food would be the first engine; in a talent show,the voting element and the viewer’s influence on the narra-tive would be the driver. “Like any aspect of a show, we try,while making it, to envisage what it will do to a viewer andwhat emotion it will generate—humor, criticism, etc.—andthen we try to build the mechanism and/or platforms thatwill enable that response.”

VALUE ADDFellow Israeli Avi Armoza, the CEO and founder of ArmozaFormats, agrees that interactivity should never be added forthe sake of ticking the interactive box. “It should only be usedwhere it will improve the viewer experience and bring theformat idea to life,” he says, pointing out that the vast majorityof viewers just want to watch a good show. “They don’t careabout industry trends, so unless the interactivity is adding valueto their personal or social experience, they won’t want it.”Armoza also believes that interactivity has yet to come of age.

“I think the industry is working on finding the right balancebetween engaging viewers with a combination of content, the

most relevant form of interaction and sufficient monetizationfor broadcasters,” he says. And then there’s the whole questionof viewer psychology. “We can anticipate what we think theaudience wants but we can never be 100 percent certain withwhich genres or on which level they will want to engage.”The fact that Israel is second only to Silicon Valley in the

size and vibrancy of its technology community is undoubt-edly helping its indigenous producers to stay ahead of theinteractive game. Increasingly, Israeli format shops, Armozaamong them, are joining forces with tech companies tocreate fresh, surprising content, powered and inspired bytechnology. One such show is the social-media-driven ThePeople’s Choice, developed in partnership with France’s TF1.In essence, the prime-time format turns the social-mediaexperience into a live TV event by asking viewers to vote ontrending, thought-provoking or entertaining dilemmas, suchas whether they would prefer world peace or $1 million incash. Once the nation has made its choice live, the studioaudience attempts to guess what the country has decided.

FORMAT IDOLSTechnologically, The People’s Choice would not have beenpossible even six months ago, Armoza says. Again, the creditgoes to his company’s digital partner, Screenz, whose RealTime Platform technology is robust and stable enough towithstand this level of mass live interaction. At MIPTV, Armoza will be offering broadcasters a digital sup-

port package for The People’s Choice, saving them the timeand trouble of developing such bleeding-edge technologythemselves. It will also be remarketing another interactiveformat, The Frame, in which eight couples are filmed 24/7 intheir own homes, with their lives reduced to one fixed-camera frame. “When we initially launched the show in 2009,there was a lot of interest,” Armoza says. “However, the formatwas ahead of its time and broadcasters didn’t have interac-tivity on the radar in the way they do today. We believe thetime is now right for The Frame to reach its full potential.”With Idols, The X Factor, Family Feud and Got Talent in

its portfolio, nobody would argue with Vasha Wallace’s claimthat FremantleMedia is “a bit of a global leader” when it comes


Talent competitionshows, among themFremantleMedia’s The Heart of MyCountry, have been at the forefront ofviewer interactivity in formats.

28 TV FORMATS

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to interactivity in formats. “We certainly pride ourselves onbeing at the forefront,” says the company’s senior VP of globalacquisitions and development. She runs through the produc-tion leviathan’s interactive “firsts”: American Idol revolu-tionized the TV voting landscape by being the first show to useFacebook and Google; the new season of The X Factor in theU.K. saw the launch of free in-app voting; the U.S. version ofevergreen format Family Feud was the first game show tohold casting auditions on Facebook; and the new singing tal-ent format The Heart of My Country sees performers can-vass votes via social media. Another FremantleMedia first is the development of a ‘white

label’ app to be sold alongside one of its latest formats, MasterAthletes, in which 24 ultra-fit members of the public embarkon a grueling, ten-week sports challenge. FremantleMediapartnered with Applicaster to develop and distribute thereality show’s app, which enables second-screeners to playprediction and trivia games, and access real-time content,including replays and commentary from contestants. Wallace echoes Screenz’s Uzan when she says that inter-

activity is best considered and implemented at the incep-tion of a format. That said, nothing technological should bewritten in stone, given the vertiginous pace of digital devel-opment and the trend-driven nature of social media. “New

social platforms are forever appearing or gaining in pop-ularity,” she observes. “So the ability to include these in inter-active plans can contribute to keeping a show fresh, nurturedand alive.”

THE NEXT LEVELIonoco’s Ingram also makes the point that when many ofthe legacy formats—Family Feud is one—were conceived,interactivity had yet to be invented. “There’s absolutely noreason why the legacy formats can’t be revisited and retro-fitted with interactivity,” he says. “It’s actually a very effectiveand relatively easy way to refresh your back catalogue.”Back at FremantleMedia, Wallace reports a huge surge in

second-screen interactivity around the big entertainmentformats, with audiences engaging enthusiastically in games,online content, inter-fan chat and YouTube clips. The lastseason of Britain’s Got Talent enjoyed its best-ever seasonin the digital space, attracting record-breaking downloadsand interactions via the show’s official app, huge social-media buzz, heavy traffic to its website and literally millionsof YouTube views from around the world. “Viewers like tohave a centralized place to discuss, share and complain,”Wallace says, adding that, in these post-watercooler days,that centralized place is very often a social-media channel.“Interaction through social channels during a show really

helps to amplify its visibility on air,” Wallace says. She warns,however, that social-media chatter is an unpredictable beast.“It allows viewers to have a real-time response, so that goodand bad comments can come at once.”So what of the future? Where will interactivity take for-

mats next? Wallace and Ingram both cite mobile as the nextfrontier, predicting that it will become a key platform for thelaunch of new content and services.Global Agency’s Pinto believes that live interactivity has the

potential to transform the quiz show, which has been falteringin recent years. “It offers the possibility for everyone to be aplayer, not just the chosen few who make it into the televisionstudio,” he says. He references Turkish game show Joker, nowairing on France 2, in which contestants win and lose thou-sands of dollars at breakneck speed: “I see a big interactivefuture for quizzes like Joker, where people at home in theirliving rooms or on their mobiles on the train could win life-changing amounts of money in real time. But it’s still early days.We haven’t seen any breakout successes in this area yet, butwhen we do, there will be no going back.”This, in essence, appears to be the takeaway: interactivity

is here, there, but not yet everywhere. Everyone agrees, how-ever, that it will be soon. At some point, a format will emergethat will fuse next-generation technology with left-field cre-ativity to take interactivity to the next level. That will be goodfor everybody, ionoco’s Ingram predicts, not least broadcast-ers struggling to stem the hemorrhage from linear to online.“In today’s world, it’s harder to make appointment-to-viewtelevision profitable,” he says. “The ability to interact live willbreathe new life into event programming and help bring rev-enues back to broadcasters by offering something that youhave to be there in the moment to experience.”A final thought comes from Screenz’s Uzan. “It’s not about

creating TV series any more,” he says. “We are creating contentbrands that need to live on all platforms, all the time. The bestthing we can do is use the awareness of television to createdigital assets together with our partners.”

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Applicasterworked withFremantleMediaon the app forMaster Athletes.


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ITV Studios’Hell’s Kitchen.

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ust as a delicious home-cooked meal can bring togetherthe whole family at the dinner table, series centered onculinary delights have proven their ability to gatherviewers around the TV set. Indeed, cooking showshave translated into big business in the content mar-ket, particularly so within the format segment.

Among the most successful food-based formats is ITVStudios’ Hell’s Kitchen, which has now been produced in17 territories internationally. “Hell’s Kitchen has a very dif-ferent approach to cooking,” says Mike Beale, the execu-tive VP of global development and formats at ITV Studios.“It’s not necessarily about cooking; it’s more about the busi-ness of cooking. It’s about running a restaurant, how hardit is to do and the competitiveness within it.” This behind-the-scenes action, coupled with the emotion-

filled backstories of the contestants and the drama of thechallenges designed to test their skills, makes the show aperfect fusion of the food and reality genres. Many of the most popular cooking formats on the market

today do, in fact, cross over into other genres. These hybridshave helped to invigorate the entire concept of watchingfood programming on TV, making it a much more enter-taining proposition than the stand-and-stir recipe showsfrom the days of yore. Another example of a culinary hybrid format is Game of

Chefs, which comes from The Lab, a joint venture betweenITV Studios and Israel’s Reshet. The show is billed as acooking competition, as it sees three top chefs battling tofind their country’s next top culinary master. However,Beale likens it more to “the talent show of cooking.” Hesays, “It very much follows a beat and pacing that we recog-nize in talent shows. It’s on a big scale, set in a studio envi-ronment, with chefs, judges, mentors. It delivers somethingreally different in that sense.”

MATTER OF TASTEFrom the Red Arrow International catalogue, The Taste is alsopart talent show and part cooking competition. The format,which originated in the U.S. and has been a hit in prime timeon ABC, sees culinary superstar mentors use only their tastebuds to select a team of cooks to coach through the season.

“What’s unique about The Taste is that it really is allabout the actual taste of food,” says Harry Gamsu, the VPof format acquisitions and sales at Red Arrow International.The panel is made up of celebrity chefs who sample thecontestants’ dishes without knowing who cooked them.Red Arrow International is also home to the formats My

Restaurant Rocks and Midnight Feast, both of which fea-ture strong competition elements. Given the popularity of watching restaurant battles and

epic kitchen showdowns on TV, it’s no wonder that gameshows have also become part of the food-programmingmix. FremantleMedia recently cooked up an acquisitiondeal with Spain’s Mandarina for the fast-paced culinarygame show My Mom Cooks Better Than Yours, whichhas gained quite a bit of traction in the internationalmarket in just a short span of time. “Of the slate that welaunched at MIPCOM, I would say that My Mom hasseen the most business in terms of sales,” says ChrisO’Dell, the head of global entertainment production atFremantleMedia. “We’ve had five sales already, and I reckonit will be in the double figures in terms of global produc-tions by the summer.”

GET IN THE GAMENippon TV’s cooking game show GOCHI has been a prime-time hit in Japan for more than a decade, with some 300episodes produced to date. The format has done exception-ally well in Romania, and there has been interest in adapt-ing the show in China as well. Shigeko “Cindy” Chino, the company’s senior director of

international business development, says GOCHI “takescooking shows to a new level by bringing the competitionto the front of the restaurant.” She adds, “By mixing thebehind-the-scenes culinary action with the amusing dinner-party guests and the high stakes of competition, this showis fun for audiences of all ages.”While the game-show element on its own has a strong

pull for food programming, adding in ingredients from real-ity series can up the attraction even more. Such is the casewith FremantleMedia’s My Mom format, in which the keytwist is all about family dynamics.

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“The thing about My Mom in terms of an internationalformat is that the core concept of the relationship betweena mother and child is universal,” says O’Dell. “People canrelate to it. When audiences see the show, they instantlythink, How would I be in that situation if it were my mom?Immediately you’ve got [an audience] trigger there.”

HOME COOKSViewers can also easily relate to the central premise of theculinary competition Pressure Cooker, which is sold byBBC Worldwide. The format deals with the all-too-familiardilemma of having to prepare a meal with only limitedingredients at your disposal.

“We’ve all come home at least once and gone, Ohblimey, what am I going to make for dinner?” saysSuzanne Kendrick, the acting head of formats at BBCWorldwide. “It’s quite a relatable show, because it’s allabout making meals, in a short space of time, with ingre-dients you have lying around. It’s a bit more real andaccessible for a different audience than might watch someof those very ‘foodie’ formats.”

Comarex touts a similar appeal for its new formatKitchen to Fame, which sets out to find the country’s topnew cooking celebrity. “One of the key hooks is that it’stargeted to the general population, not to foodies,” saysMarcel Vinay Jr., the CEO of Comarex. “It’s for regular,everyday people who enjoy food. The show has a strongreality angle to it, where the contestants are going throughtraining and learning how to cook for a weekly show-down. You see the drama inside their personal lives andgo with them on the journey through their training pro-gram. The audience gets very personally acquainted witheach of the contestants.”

The audience hook of relatability is also central to ElectusInternational’s game show/cooking hybrid Food Fighters.

“Because it features home cooks competing against pro-fessional chefs, Food Fighters is the kind of show that whenyou’re watching it, you feel like you could [be competing]yourself,” says John Pollak, the president of Electus Interna-tional. “With shows that have professional cooks, you enjoythem because it’s escapism, but with Food Fighters, it’s allabout being able to relate to the contestants. It’s about see-ing [people who are like] your next-door neighbor, yourmother, your best friend—people who are just like you, whohave been cooking a few meals their entire lives fromrecipes that have been handed down from generation togeneration. Everybody has those recipes in their family.”

The original U.S. version of Food Fighters, airing on NBC,features a host that possesses these same easy-to-relate-toqualities: Adam Richman, who is also the face of Travel Chan-nel’s Man v. Food. “One of the reasons we love Adam so muchis that he’s this amazing on-screen talent, but at the end of theday, he’s just a normal guy,” says Pollak. “He’s not a profes-sional chef; he just loves food and loves to eat. Having some-body like that as a host is ideal for us internationally.”

CELEBRITY CHEFSPerhaps one of the most well-known hosts in the cooking-format sphere is Gordon Ramsay. The British celebrity chefand restaurateur, famous for his fiery temper and foulmouth, has presented a slew of competitive cookery andfood shows, including the U.K.’s Hell’s Kitchen, The F Wordand Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, as well as the Americanversions of Hell’s Kitchen, Kitchen Nightmares, Master -Chef, MasterChef Junior and others. In Ramsay’s case, it’snot so much that audiences relate to him, but more thatthey can’t wait to see what he’s going to do (or say) next.

“In the past, [local producers of Hell’s Kitchen] have beenworried about always finding their Gordon Ramsay, but theydon’t seem to have that problem anymore,” says ITV Studios’

Pressure Cooker, sold byBBC Worldwide, aims toappeal to everyday,at-home cooks.


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Beale. “We’ve got a very interesting slate of chefs from aroundthe world who manage to run a kitchen like Gordon does.” Having a compelling host attached—à la Gordon Ramsay—

is paramount to the international success of the Hell’sKitchen format, Beale explains. “The first thing we dobefore we even sell the format is identify the chef or wework with a partner to identify the chef,” he says. “We don’teven bother contracting until we’ve identified that talent.”The scale and celebrity of Hell’s Kitchen has helped position

the format in prime time around the world. With existing for-mat behemoths like Hell’s Kitchen filling these slots, Bealeacknowledges that it’s tough for a new prime-time cookeryshow to break through. “It would need to have a new twist,what I call the ‘spinning-chair moment,’ that revitalizes thegenre and launches it again,” he says.

DAILY DOSE According to Beale, there are more requests for cooking series inaccess prime nowadays. He believes that these shows have astrong proposition for daily strips or access prime, because “ifyou look at the tone of them, they are somewhat like soapoperas. The cooking is the driving force, but what audiencesare really enjoying is the people and the people’s interactions.”FremantleMedia’s O’Dell says that for My Mom, the fact that

it’s a studio concept makes it easy to produce at a high volume,so it fits well for daily slots. “It’s not exclusively a daily show,”he says, “but cooking does sit naturally in that space. However,with the right talent and the right concept—and we think MyMom has that—cooking can be in prime time.” Comarex’s Kitchen to Fame features an innovative sched-

uling approach that includes daily and weekly broadcasts.The format has three- to five-minute daily capsules in whichactivities at the cooking center and the day’s recipes are

broadcast, and a 30-minute daily program showing theprogress made by the contestants, their response to the var-ious challenges, how they deal with the conflicts of livingtogether, etc. In the weekly program, contestants are evalu-ated in challenging tests and then eliminated by a panel ofjudges until three remain to compete in the final show.Viewers are also able to interact with Kitchen to Fame onFacebook, YouTube and Twitter.

TABLE SERVICEVinay Jr. says that cooking shows, including Kitchen toFame, can cast a wide net in terms of audience demograph-ics, “appealing to males, females and even teens.” “Cooking is universal,” agrees Electus International’s

Pollak, “but it does hit the female demographic very well,which is something that broadcasters want.” Keren Shahar, the managing director of distribution at

Keshet International, says that the allure of featuring celebri-ties in the company’s new prime-time reality show Help! ICan’t Cook has boosted the format’s potential audiencereach. “Each celebrity will already have a fan base that isdrawn to the show, and they can vary in demographic,” shesays. “Help! is oriented around family viewing: it is cast in away that enables each viewer to find a celebrity they canidentify with, from children to grandparents. The first seriesin Israel, for example, included a children’s TV presenter, aretired basketball star and a top model. Equally, some person-alities who we perhaps ‘love to hate’ will attract viewers, too.”BBC Worldwide has seen local partners produce celebrity

episodes of its The Great Bake Off format in a bid to attract adifferent set of viewers, according to Kendrick. Looking to per-haps skew a bit younger, a new “junior” version of Bake Off wasrecently launched as well.


Red Arrow International’sThe Taste airs in primetime in the U.S. on ABC.

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“Food programming tends to skew toward a demographicwith disposable incomes, viewers who care about whatthey dish up on their families’ plates and who also havetime to spend in the kitchen,” says Red Arrow’s Gamsu.“This is a valuable demographic for advertisers looking topromote their latest products to an audience that is inter-ested in and engaged with food.”Another benefit for advertisers and broadcasters when it

comes to cooking formats is product integration. “There’salways a demand for recipes, cookbooks, kitchenware andingredients,” Gamsu says. “Cooking shows like The Taste proveideal platforms for integrations, and they are getting more andmore sophisticated as brands realize the power of being asso-ciated with these hugely popular shows.”While rules and regulations regarding product placement and

branded sponsorships vary territory by territory, overall thereare loads of opportunities available, from the kitchen sets tothe cooking equipment to the ingredients being used. Cookingshows can also translate into a robust consumer-products busi-ness, with branded recipe books, utensils and more.

HUNGRY FOR MOREAs viewers increasingly seek out take-home value fromthese big cooking brands, the opportunities for digitalextensions are becoming a larger part of the overall 360-degree package. “Audiences want to be able to consumecooking shows in different ways, not just on the televisionitself but on their second screens,” says FremantleMedia’sO’Dell. “Also, they want to be able to talk about the show[with friends and other fans] and interact with the show.For a series that is essentially showing you how to cook adish (albeit in an entertaining way), it lends itself perfectlyto people going to the website and downloading the recipe,but also swapping ideas on social media or posting pic-

tures of themselves with the [completed dish]. Cooking isa very strong partner for all those digital components.”In terms of territory reach, O’Dell says, “Food formats

pretty much work everywhere!” He adds, “With some ofour formats, we will go to certain territories and they maysay, That’s not really for us. I’ve never heard that saidabout a cooking show.”

THE RIGHT INGREDIENTS Gamsu echoes this sentiment. “Cooking formats seem to be anevergreen genre, and there is a constant demand for new foodand cooking shows,” he says. “Whether you are interested incooking or not, everyone has a relationship with food. “In terms of which territories are hottest for cooking for-

mats, France, Germany, the U.K. and the U.S. seem to have thestrongest appetite. The sale of The Taste to over 50 territoriesin Latin America [as a finished product] proves that there is astrong buying trend for these types of formats there, too.”Sharing his opinion on where the food-formats trend is

headed next, Gamsu says, “I see this genre skewing toward ayounger demographic. As food gets edgier, trendier and faster,we are seeing younger people who are increasingly moreinvested in their health and the food they eat. This trend is nowbeing represented on our TV screens. “I think big, talent-based food competitions will continue to

be a success, and there will be more combinations of food TVwith other genres such as dating and reality,” he continues. While the introduction of blind taste tests previously put a

fresh spin on the food genre, producers are now challenged tofind the next innovative angle, says ITV Studios’ Beale. “It’s alla matter of evolution and how you can advance the genre intoits next incarnation. Everybody is chasing that Holy Grail.Would we love a new cooking show tomorrow with a fantasticnew twist? Absolutely.”


Electus Internationalis distributingFood Fighters, which ispart game show andpart cooking series.

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From The Voice to Got Talent to The Biggest Loser, NBC is theU.S. home to some of the world’s biggest entertainment formatbrands. Joining that mix soon will be the long-awaited Americanadaptation of the veteran British variety show Saturday NightTakeaway, fronted by Neil Patrick Harris, and a U.S. spin on theIsraeli-originated I Can Do That!, hosted by comedian and actorMarlon Wayans with a celebrity lineup that includes NicoleScherzinger, Ciara and Joe Jonas. As the president of alternativeand late night programming at NBC Entertainment, Paul Telegdy iskeeping an eye out for the best new concepts on the global market,while also making sure that his returning series continue to deliver,season after season.

TV FORMATS: When we last spoke three years ago, The Voicewas a huge brand for you, and it remains so today. What’sgone into maintaining its success?TELEGDY: The theory of franchise management is launch,grow, sustain. We are probably in the sustain part of the life-cycle of the show. In that phase, there are big changes,medium-sized changes and small changes. There are veryfew big changes, a few medium-sized changes and thou-sands of small changes that are imperceptible to anyoneother than the people working on the show. There’s a lotthat falls into the category of creative excellence and self-

imposed improvements—costumes, lighting, etc.—by hun-dreds of people wanting to do better work every time theycome to the office. The format curation is driven by what we have more of

than we ever had in the past, which is audience insight andratings. Minute-by-minute ratings will tell you what peoplelike and don’t like. Now we have a whole additional tier ofanalytics from the armchair experts who comment socially.It’s not just, “#iloveadam”—there’s a conversation about theshow among its super-fans that will tell you what they wantmore of, what they want less of. We put that into a body ofchanges to the format, to the audience engagement tools andto the interactivity. Ten years ago when we did one of these[talent] shows, there was a toll-free number and peoplephoned and voted. Then you voted online. Now you probablydownload theVoice app and vote multiple times and live andbreathe the show—not just while the show is on. The whole24-hour environment around the show feeds the super-fanengagement. That’s all part of the sustain phase.Then there are the big things that could change the

momentum of the show. Frequently that conversation sur-rounds who is going to be in one of those chairs. The com-bination of coaches is the subject of literal debate, includingwith the coaches themselves. The great thing about theshow is that we can confidently go to top-flight artists and

say, Trust me, there’s going to be a moment during the pro-duction of this show when you’ll say, Paul, this is the mostfun I’ve ever had and I’m being paid for it! The big changesare also ones that relate to the business of show business:would we go to one season a year, stay at two a year, con-sider a different version of the show from a length and vol-ume point of view? Those are really big decisions. The showis still massively successful; it’s a linchpin of NBC’s sched-ule. It’s 90 hours a year—that’s four full season orders of adrama or eight full season orders of a sitcom! We rely on itas a launch platform, as a social platform and for generalrelevance. It keeps us current, cool and part of the conver-sation with the music industry.

TV FORMATS: When you do change the lineup of coaches, atwhat point in the process do you know if the chemistryamong them is going to work?TELEGDY: This is such a strong format. We love formats thatwork. You can really tell in this form of program makingwhen a concept is working for you creatively. Anyone whohas reached a certain point in their life as a performer hasa competitive streak. You seat [these performers] next toeach other and the format works in delivering a kind ofquasi-competitive chemistry and rivalry. You’ve got to get

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PAUL TELEGDYNBCENTERTAINMENTBy ManshaDaswani

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people who are up for it. You look for that quality in peopleand it’s pretty easy to identify when you’re talking to themearly on in the process. Nothing’s a dead certainty, but theformat and the production process are designed to get thebest from people.

TV FORMATS: It’s actually the only show I can watch withmy 12-year-old niece!TELEGDY: What you’re saying is actually really important.From a general, thematic point of view, The Voice is every-thing you would want a 12-year-old to be learning, goinginto the tough lessons of life. There’s no pompous higherpurpose—it is an entertainment show. The themes are, it’sOK to fail and pick yourself up and try again, success is ahard-fought battle, hard work equals results. The generaltheme of inclusion that comes from the blind auditions[where contestants are judged on their abilities, not on theirappearance] is not just applicable to the world of singing.My kids are not singers; I’m not encouraging them to besingers, but I am encouraging them to have the attitudes ofthis show. That’s why you can sit and watch it with yourniece. It’s rarely going to be inappropriate. It could be saucyenough for you but will go over her head. It’s perfectly craftedfor family viewing.

TV FORMATS: Got Talent has been on your schedule for evenlonger than The Voice has. Has it been a similar processfor you, maintaining the success of that franchise?TELEGDY: I think we learned from America’s Got Talent. Itwas a show that had changed its panel and its host—it wasn’tfrightened of making talent changes. The irony is that I’m

gladly heading into the third season with the same panelof judges. It’s a great mix. Nick Cannon, the host, is justlovely, warm and inclusive of the contestants. HowardStern has dominated media for so many years and hislongevity is not a coincidence. Howie Mandel, who hasbeen a massive star on NBC for the better part of a decade,is beloved, well-liked and funny. Mel B and Heidi Klum areformidable women who are making their marks in life, rais-ing kids, carrying on careers. We love that panel because itfeels like a great dysfunctional sitcom. These panels workwhen you see the kind of strange mixes of people that you’dfind at a family dinner party. A bit of the randomness iswhat makes it so special. I’m always keen to remind people that Got Talent is by far

the most successful global format. We’re really proud that theglobal market leader from a content and quality point of viewis the U.S. version of the show. It started here and then hasbeen hugely successfully merchandised all across the planet[by FremantleMedia]. It’s a great show that has absolutelyplayed into the evolving way in which people watch TV. TheAmerica’s Got Talent audition episode has a pace fit for Mil-lennial attention deficit disorder! [Laughs] There’s somethingthat comes along every few minutes that makes you chuckle.If you didn’t like what you just watched, you may like whatyou watch next. We love Got Talent, and it’s an absolute cor-nerstone of this network’s year-round schedule. We put iton between May and September, which is a sleepy time forTV in the U.S., but it’s been a juggernaut ten years running—the number one show of the summer. That’s really importantwhen it comes to [using the show as a platform to] promotethe fall launches.

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America’s Got Talent,based on the FremantleMedia format, heads into itstenth season this year on NBC.

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TV FORMATS: Let’s talk about Saturday Night Takeaway.It’s taken a long time to come to the U.S. Why now?TELEGDY: I’ve known Ant and Dec [the hosts of ITV’s Satur-day Night Takeaway] since they were on a kids’ TV dramacalled Byker Grove! Part of the show’s value in the U.K., andwhy it rates, is because it’s a platform for these two belovedstars. We put together a very, very short list of people wefelt had the characteristics that would lift this format towhere Ant and Dec had lifted it. I have to tip my hat off to[ITV Studios]—they got the one person who was at the top ofour list: Neil Patrick Harris. He loves it. He has immersedhimself in it. He gets it and gets the tradition of circusshows—shows where a bit of everything can happen. He’smultitalented in a way that is broad and accessible. He tran-scends the narrow connotations of stage song and danceman. He’s an outright TV star and movie star.It is a great format, and every year someone from ITV had

come to pitch it to me. It was on a list of shows I thought,There’s a reason this works. It’s a really joyous, fun play-ground for the right talent. We’re super excited about it.It’s a very hard show to make. That’s the show that peoplewill think is effortless and easy to pull off, but it’s one of the

most extraordinary and logistically com-plex shows and they make it look effort-less. So we’re hoping to replicate that, withNeil as our ringmaster.

TV FORMATS:What are some of the otherformat adaptations you’re working on?TELEGDY:We are going into production onI Can Do That! from Armoza Formats. Isaw this show a while ago. I optioned itbecause I believed there was a strong ker-nel of an idea there. I had looked at thepilot that Avi [Armoza] and his team hadmade in Israel. We have taken a castingapproach and a creative approach to it thatI would say is a pretty radical evolution ofthe starting point of the format, which hasat its heart an excellent idea. We’ve got adifferent type of cast, and we’re not elim-inating people. It’s everything we’velearned, frankly, from The Voice and GotTalent and Dancing with the Stars rolledinto a new kind of experience. We’re veryexcited about it because it’s got great vari-ety acts coming in—and when I say variety,I mean the world that includes Cirque duSoleil and Blue Man Group, not a blokepulling flowers out of his pocket. It’s a big-scale spectacle, coupled with great castchemistry and will-they-or-won’t-they-pull-it-off stakes weekly.

TV FORMATS: How important is live viewerengagement in formats that are beingpitched to you?TELEGDY: This is going to sound controver-sial: it is of zero importance going into apitch. I tell people, when pitching to us, toplease take out the following two slides.One: anything to do with interactivity.

Think of the level of assets and resources that a companylike NBCUniversal has in the area of interactivity! We havea digital team of several hundred people. We assume every-thing is going to have a massive level of interactivity. Two:that this format is going to be advertiser-friendly. If it isn’tadvertiser-friendly, you’re in the wrong place! If the storytelling doesn’t work, don’t bother building an

expensive app that is not going to do anything for you. Startwith a TV story; if on its merits it feels like it’s going to be [ahit], it’ll get anything and everything that makes it engagewith audiences. Yes, interactivity is important. We want ourapps to be incredible experiences that augment viewing.They’re not meant to be distractions from what’s going on on-screen, they’re meant to be complementary. Having said that,we are actively experimenting, and we will continue to lookfor the best ideas that combine TV screen and device. Affectingthe outcome of the show is still something that’s important topeople, but it shouldn’t override their overall enjoyment ofthe experience. And technical challenges are the last thingyou want going into the incredibly technically fraught worldof producing live television. Interactivity is table stakes—it’snot a unique selling point for any show.

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The Voice, originatedby Talpa in the Netherlands, continuesto be one of NBC’sbiggest hits, airing inboth the winter and thefall seasons.

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By Anna Carugati

Loosely based on the Venezuelan telenovela Juana la virgen,the American show Jane the Virgin has developed a followingof passionate fans—as all good novelas do. The show on TheCW, about a young woman who decides to remain chaste untilmarriage but is accidentally artificially inseminated during aroutine check-up, has also caught the attention of critics. In fact,its star, Gina Rodriguez, won a Golden Globe for best actress ina TV comedy, beating out seasoned actors such as Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Edie Falco. Part of the appeal of the show, besidesRodriguez’s empathetic performance as sweet-yet-determinedJane, is that it lovingly pokes fun at the many stereotypes of thetelenovela genre. Rodriguez and showrunner Jennie SnyderUrman talk about this season’s surprise hit TV series.

TV FORMATS: How did you first hear about the show?RODRIGUEZ: When I first heard about Jane it was pilot sea-son, and I was going on a lot of auditions during thattime. When they called me and said, You have an audi-tion for Jane the Virgin on Tuesday, I thought, Oh, Janethe Virgin, that is quite the title! What role am I comingin for? And they said, Jane, and I thought, Awesome!Awesome! Jane! They know I’m brown, right?Everybody’s aware of it? [Laughs] They sent me thescript and within five pages I was wondering, Who is thiswoman? Who is Jennie Urman? How is she able to writeabout my experience growing up, which was one of hav-ing a dual identity: I had a super American lifestyle, asuper American upbringing, but my grandma spokeSpanish and we had these small customs [at home] thatwere different from American customs. For me, it wassuch a breath of fresh air to read something about a girlhaving dreams and trying to get her stuff together. Howcould this crazy accident happen? So I fell in love—fell inlove—with the script and auditioned like everyone else. Iwent in and I met Jennie. Then I did three tests with thestudio and the network, and the rest is history.

TV FORMATS: What do you like about Jane? As a viewer, Ilove her honesty. I also love that she looks like most nor-mal women on the street and not like someone in a fash-ion magazine that most of us will never resemble.RODRIGUEZ: That’s very similar to how I feel. Growing up, notonly did I not see myself as a girl with a Latino background,but I didn’t see myself beauty-wise. It’s very interesting. As awoman, growing up there is a process you go through toaccept yourself. We get to a point in life where we say, I’mdone living for everybody else; I need to love myself. I think,depending on your upbringing, depending on what you’rearound and the influences you have, that journey can take avery long time in our society. Society says you have to look acertain way, you have to talk a certain way, you have to comefrom a certain economic background.

I see Jane as a person who perseveres through anykind of obstacle. She’s not driven by power and status;on the contrary, she’s driven by love and connectionand honesty and realness. She’s not a girl who has out-landish dreams; they are very realistic dreams. Andshe’s the product of a mistake as well [her mother gotpregnant as a teenager]. Jane makes mistakes and shefails, but she tries and tries again. I love that about herbecause that is Jane’s hard-learned journey. She has tofight, whether it’s her desire to be a writer or finding outabout her unfortunate situation and then having tomake tough choices. She is ultimately the woman Iwould love to be and the woman at times I wish I were

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GINA RODRIGUEZ


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more like: she is patient and faithful and understanding,but at the same time she is imperfect and she isn’t asaint. She has flaws and is real. She is considered beau-tiful in her virginity, and even though she’s not a size 2,she is still beautiful and she still has men after her andthat’s not a discussion. Her weight is not a discussion.Her ethnicity is not a discussion. It’s not a discussionbecause she is close to what exists out there in real life.If art is supposed to reflect our daily lives and inspire usto connect and relate, then that’s the project I want todo. I want to be part of that. There is no part of Jane thatis uncool for not having sex. There is no part of Jane thatisn’t beautiful for not being a size 2. That’s awesome.That’s going to help the younger girl [in the audience] whodoesn’t have the influences in her house to tell her, You’rebeautiful the way you are. You don’t have to put makeupon to hide yourself, but instead use it to accentuate thebeauty you have. Now we have this girl on screen, Jane,who is saying all of that just by being who she is.

TV FORMATS: You were on the soap opera The Bold andthe Beautiful. Did the intense pace of the daily produc-tion help hone your skills as an actor?RODRIGUEZ: One hundred percent, one hundred per-cent! People would say, What? You’re on a soapopera? I’d say, Don’t knock it! You would not believehow intense the memorizing has to be, how quicklyyou are getting scripts the day you shoot—upwards of40, 50 pages to memorize and you have one or twotakes, period. The end. I went to NYU Tisch School ofthe Arts, and I swear [being on a soap opera] is like amaster class in acting: memorize, make choices, go.What helped me so much on The Bold and theBeautiful was learning how to memorize so quickly.And now, to be the lead on a TV show and work fivedays a week and then do press and fly out of the cityon the weekends—memorizing so quickly and makingchoices, just committing to a choice, has helped metremendously.

Jennie Snyder Urman had already created the series Emily Owens, M.D.for The CW when she heard about an unusual project, one based on aVenezuelan telenovela. Intrigued, she quickly fell in love with the genre andjumped right into creating an American adaptation, Jane the Virgin.

TV FORMATS: How did you start adapting Juana la virgen? URMAN: One of the big differences right away was that The CWdidn’t want to have a teenage girl [as the main character] and in theoriginal it was a 16-year-old girl. My Jane is 24, and I feel like a 24-year-old virgin is just inherently a different creature than a 16-year-old virgin. [Being a virgin at 24] is more of a choice and it’s probablygoing to challenge a lot more. So I had an older character and I startedto think, Why has she made this choice? Who was her mom? Themom character emerged and then the grandmother, and each gen-eration has its own course correction. It all started to come to me.They said, You can use anything you like from the original, but youdon’t have to; use what works for you.I just knew I also wanted to play with the telenovela form and

have my characters be real fans of the genre. Jane is an ordinary girl

and all of a sudden her life becomes one of the telenovelas that shewatches on TV! Her life takes on the outrageous proportions oftelenovelas and then she [has to deal with] the reality of [becomingpregnant]. I thought maybe I could find a tone that was both out-landish and grounded at the same time. I love knowing all the tele -novela tropes so we can play with them. Our whole approach was thatwe were never going to make a satire of a telenovela or mock it in anyway. It was always going to be a love letter to the telenovela.

TV FORMATS: What are some of the tropes you want to honor?URMAN: A man and a woman usually are destined to be together.There is the gold-digging wife, the evil twins and somebody whoyou thought was dead but isn’t dead. You can easily call them soap-opera tropes, but ours are specific to telenovelas. One of my writersis a creator of many telenovelas and created the original DeviousMaids, and she’s always telling me, Ah, this would happen here! Ireally try to mine as much as I can from her.

TV FORMATS: What made the show connect so well with critics andthe audience? The average viewer of The CW probably does notwatch telenovelas. URMAN: I think the biggest, biggest, biggest reason is Gina, becauseshe just does not hit a false note. She is so authentic. She is so lik-able. I wanted Jane to be a kind, optimistic, likable person who istrying to do the right thing in a really crazy situation. I don’t thinkyou have to be necessarily dark and twisted to be interesting, andGina has shown people that because she plays an interesting char-acter who is inherently good, there is something nice about the opti-mism of the show that viewers respond to. As for the audience andtelenovelas, we do watch them; we just call them something else.I’m a huge Scandal fan and to me that’s a telenovela: the Presidentof the United States can’t be with the woman he really wants to bewith! There’s comedy and drama and sex and intrigue! And you’rehoping that at the end of the day these two people will find eachother. I think we are familiar with the telenovela genre; we justdon’t call it that.

Jennie Snyder Urman


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ith 67 local versions around the world, GotTalent has been recognized by GuinnessWorld Records as the world’s most suc-cessful reality TV format. Co-owned by

FremantleMedia and Simon Cowell’s Syco Entertainment,the format is gearing up to celebrate its tenth anniversary inthe U.S., which was the first country where it launched.The longevity of the format can be pinned to several key

factors, says Chris O’Dell, the head of global entertainmentproduction at FremantleMedia, “but number one is that it’s agreat show!”He continues, “There are not many shows in the entertain-

ment genre that can have you laughing one minute, crying thenext minute and hiding behind the sofa the minute after that. Ina good episode of Got Talent, all of those things will happen.”George Levendis, the head of international at Syco TV,

adds, “Got Talent beautifully celebrates the unique aspectsof each individual country’s culture through its talent on dis-play, from the phenomenal to the humorous and just plainoutrageous. The format is adaptable to each market no mat-ter the size and it has broad appeal, being one of the fewglobal formats that continues to be entertaining event tele-vision, bringing the entire family together.”Ten years on, Got Talent continues to create “watercooler

moments, delivering massive ratings and millions of views,going viral globally on social media,” Levendis says. “In the

past year alone, [versions in] markets as diverse as Mexico,Denmark, South Africa, Thailand and the Middle East havebeen exciting audiences on a weekly basis. This format trulytranscends cultures.”Indeed, the Got Talent format is present in one form or

another in all corners of the globe. There’s even a treatment inMongolia coming later this year, which was one of the fewremaining territories left to shore up. “We haven’t done a NorthPole’s Got Talent yet, but maybe that’s not far off,” jokesFremantleMedia’s O’Dell. “We’ve pretty much been every-where; it’s a show that has no boundaries.”The American and French versions are the longest running,

heading into their tenth seasons this year. In the U.K., Britain’sGot Talent is entering its ninth season. “In most places, we’re upto seasons four, five or six,” says O’Dell. “It’s actually harder tofind a season one than it is to find seasons further down the line.We did season one in Mexico last year and that was a big suc-cess. We’re planning for season two in the fall.“Last year we also did season one of Iceland’s Got Talent.

Iceland has a population of 350,000 people, but we did a verysuccessful show there. They’ve launched season two. It’s ashow that continues to grow and grow. For us, it’s one of, ifnot themost robust format that we’ve got in the market.”Throughout all of these various international treatments, the

core of the Got Talentconcept has remained the same: a varietyof acts audition in front of a live audience and a celebrity judg-

ing panel. The best move on through to the live semifinals andfinals, until one act is ultimately crowned the winner.While the local versions generally remain faithful to the

original format, there have been a few variations along theway. One example is the introduction of the “golden buzzer”in Germany in 2012. The idea is that each judge can pressthis special buzzer at any time during the audition phase tosend an act directly through to the live shows, regardless ofwhat the other judges have to say. This new element workedso well in the German version that it was integrated into var-ious other international iterations, including in the U.S. andthe U.K.O’Dell says that in the future, FremantleMedia is looking

increasingly at how the voting is done for Got Talent. “Insome countries, there’s already the introduction of voting viaan app or online. The traditional ways of voting through SMSand telephone line are certainly not going to be phased out,but there are alternate ways of doing it that offer quite inter-esting opportunities for producers.”Syco TV’s Levendis adds, “Along with our partners at

FremantleMedia, we continually assess the current statusof the format in each market, always improving the localproductions and exchanging best practices globally. Ourteam of flying producers are best in class and work veryclosely with each production, ensuring that every aspect ofthe show is constantly evolving.”

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GOT TALENTBy KristinBrzoznowski

Britain’s Got Talent.

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