In the continued absence of an innovative unscripted hit, delegates at RealScreen Summit in Washington DC have been discussing rights, digital opportunities and derivative programming. Clive Whittingham reports.

They arrived – or didn’t arrive – talking about ‘Stormageddon’ and they left scratching their heads about where the next big, break-out unscripted hit is coming from.

In many ways it was a typical RealScreen Summit week in Washington DC, dominated by talk of weather, derivative programming and the threat of online to linear TV.

In the end the snow never arrived, although further north the New York-based executives – particularly from the A+E Networks channels – were unable to travel. UK indies association Pact certainly did. Always a big presence at the Summit, with their English Pub the beating heart of the event, the UK trade body kicked the week off with the news that it would launch in the US ^[1].

This is a move born from the situation in the UK, where consolidation of companies is restricting the potential for Pact to grow beyond its current size. The number of UK companies launching or buying into the US requiring Pact’s services and representation, plus the potential to sign up the companies they buy, makes it a no-brainer.

It’s unlikely they’ll be able to make such a significant difference to the rights situation here as they did in the UK with the 2003 terms of trade, but the news has raised that thorny issue of broadcasters taking all the rights to shows in the US. C21 heard from producers this week suggesting the proliferation of channels airing unscripted content has meant the situation could be softening. Fierce competition for the best ideas is resulting in concessions to ensure the network gets the show.

But the majority of broadcasters, particularly the established channels, were unequivocal. Nat Geo CEO Courteney Monroe, Discovery Family Channel VP of production and development Sarah Davies and others all said they wanted rights where possible. Brad Schwartz, president of entertainment and media and newly rebranded US cablenet Pop, told delegates that without retaining rights there would be no way for his fledgling channel to grow.

There are ways around this. Danny Fenton, CEO at Zig Zag Productions, has teamed with ^[2] Relativity TV and Tom Forman to try and get the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition creator’s new renovation series away in the UK first before launching in the US.

Fenton said: “So many times, US companies sell their shows and don’t hold on to the rights. If we can sell it first in the UK, we will hold on to the rights and then reverse it back to the US.

“Tom Forman would sell that show easily in the US because he’s Tom Forman and has track record. He wants to sell it first in the UK so the rights are jointly held by Zig Zag and Relativity. We’d produce the UK version and share the rights.” Forman and Fenton hope that show – Built in America – will be a breakout hit, and boy does the industry need it.

Cris Abrego, co-CEO and chairman of the new Endemol Shine North America, started the week in keynote conversation declaring: “Reality is in great shape”.

“The genre is not going anywhere. People have picked up on stories that we haven’t had hits for a while but we have hits on-air today. The genre is in a great place. It’s incredibly difficult to develop and create a format that can truly be that break-out hit, it’s not like anything else. But it’s a matter of time. I’m completely confident – hopefully it comes from us – it’s around the corner.”

But the success stories people have pointed to as a sign of health have all been series in their seventh, eighth, ninth and 10th seasons. Abrego admitted the failure of big swings like Fox’s Utopia and Million Second Quiz weren’t helping, because they make commissioners afraid to go into those spaces again.

Michael Cascio, CEO and president of M&C Media, came at it from a different angle, bristling at the implied criticism when people talk about the number of shows still on-air that are set in Alaska, pawn shops or swamps. He said: “Being derivative works. It’s what the audience wants. The sheer number of Alaska shows is one example; they have worked.

“Breaking through with something really different means taking risks. We all say we want network execs to take risks, but the success stories are often by accident. Seinfeld tested so poorly that NBC comedy execs let another department have it. Deadliest Catch seemed like a risk at the time and doomed to fail.”

In the search for something new, there seems to be a shift away from the highly constructed and produced reality series that have dominated this industry, particularly in the US, over recent years. The commissioners C21 spoke to – Eli Lehrer at Lifetime, Tim Pastore at National Geographic Channels, Jon Sechrist at TLC, to name just three – all mentioned a desire for programmes that feel more real, perhaps grittier, more traditional ob-doc factual.

Kim Woodard, one of the founders of National Geographic Television in New York and now executive producer at US indie Lucky 8, said this morning: “There are a lot more commissions for infotainment series now than there are for reality.”

This point was echoed by Geno McDermott, CEO of New York prodco Blackfin, who added: “People want to learn something when they watch something now, but maybe not feel like they’ve learnt something until afterwards.”

That could perhaps be described as the ‘Vice effect’ – the factual-skewing online platform is attracting the sort of young audiences linear broadcasters crave in huge numbers with hard-nosed, raw factual programming, filmed in rough style. You could devilishly point out that a few years ago we were hearing at events like RealScreen and Doc/Fest that young audiences simply didn’t want that harder factual content. Wrong.

That threat to linear TV posed by online has been a recurring theme. One exec compared it to the demise of Tower Records, the US high street music retailer that shifted its displays around and wondered why nobody was shopping there any more while two kids sat in a garage and came up with Napster. Is there something out there, just around the corner, similarly about to devour the TV industry?

Howard Lee, executive VP of development and production at TLC, said the problem online posed to his network was simply about getting shows to air quicker.

“The big trend is faster, quicker. We’re fighting Twitter, Facebook, and information leaking out everywhere. If I’m hearing about somebody on Real Housewives going to prison, I want to see it. There’s a demand from viewers to get it on air quicker.”

(Incidentally, Lee also came up with the quote of the conference, based around what he is currently getting pitched: “Transgender is the new redneck.”)

One solution is to tap into the talent that has built its own audience online and move it across to television, in the hope of bringing with it some of the colossal viewing figures we see on YouTube.

But there were words of caution, first from Sam Barcroft, founder of online specialist Barcroft Media, who said he knew of at least one YouTube star who’d refused advances from linear TV broadcasters. “She’s not interested in going to TV – she has her audience and her income,” he said. “It comes as a surprise, you think you’re giving them their big break.”

That was echoed by Fenton Bailey at World of Wonder, who added: “Networks are looking at people with big social media audiences to bring them viewers. But I don’t think there is this idea that you graduate to TV and TV is where the grown-ups play.”

Barcroft, incidentally, said TV producers should be using the online world for their own content, building audiences that can then add weight to a pitch to a linear channel.

Plenty of meat to get your teeth into in DC this week then, but it’s the lack of a ratings-winning, innovative, genre-defining, break-out hit in unscripted that sits in the conference suites like the proverbial elephant. As a little experiment, I’ve been asking RealScreen delegates this week for their favourite show of the moment, from a company or channel other than their own. Every single one named a scripted series.