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Changing the meaning of success

Amid all the news from MipFormats and MipTV last week, such as Mediaset offloading its Endemol stake, its group president subsequently leaving and David Lyle landing the C21/Frapa Gold Award, some interesting issues emerged during panel sessions.

MipTV 2012

MipTV 2012

The rise of technology and the growing influence of social media is changing the way the success of a television format is measured, delegates at MipFormats heard.

According to Mike Beale, director of international formats for UK prodco ITV Studios, the lack of a “break-out” format hit during the past five years, despite the success of shows including The Voice and Money Drop, is due in part to lack of space on broadcasters’ schedules, the increasing difficulty for producers to retain IP rights, and that broadcasters themselves have become more “conservative.”

However, Karoline Spodsberg, MD of Banijay International, questioned whether the rise of digital and social technologies meant success could still be viewed strictly in terms of ratings. “One of the things that will change our industry is technology and the fact viewers have so much power over what they want to see, where they want to see it and when,” she said. “They have multiple choices to make all the time and this will influence our industry a lot.


“Maybe the way we measure success will change. It used to be big numbers but maybe it won’t be in the future. Technology will change the way we define success and that’s part of the explanation why this one big hit has not been there for a while.” Beale and Spodsberg were speaking during The Formats Futures Report, a global perspective on the booming formats industry.

The impact of social media on the TV industry, in particular the gameshow and format industry, was a major theme running through MipFormats, and it was telling that the likes of Amazon, MySpace and Facebook were involved in panels for MipTV. Another issue was following your passion and instinct in the search for success, as opposed to trying to second-guess the market.

Delivering his MipFormats keynote, Roy Ackerman, MD of Jamie Oliver’s Fresh One Productions, encouraged producers to rely in instinct when looking for the next global format hit. During a career of almost 30 years in the television business, Ackerman has been involved in documentary, factual entertainment and drama, most recently overseeing Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution in 2010 and Dream School in 2011.

Ackerman said the biggest international formats are often “what excites you and what excites a commissioning editor. That’s usually where the great ideas are formed. If you sit there thinking about what travels around the world, that tends to lead to bland, boring shit. And I don’t like that kind of stuff. If you follow your instincts, you’re more likely to come up with a hit.”

He added: “But you can’t be in the business without working out that certain things travel. I do now think about things that will travel. But I will still make films that will appeal to bunch of people watching BBC4 or Channel 4 and I’m free in my job not just to make global hits. Some companies are based around the idea they can only make money with a show that plays on the BBC and then travels. That is a way of making money but it’s not what drives me every day of the week.”

Ackerman joined Fresh One in 2009 from Diverse Productions, where his credits include documentaries 100 Per Cent White and The Trials of Henry Kissinger, and factual entertainment series Musicality and Operatunity, the latter remade in Australia.

Fresh One is now developing a script for a fiction film about the Playboy Club, while Dream School is being remade in the US, South Africa and Israel. “The story of the format is a fascinating story,” said Ackerman, who described them as “the commodification of television. Documentary makers have always messed around with reality. There were swaps long before Wife Swap. Formats started coming in with things like Changing Rooms.

“Formats are very good for the producers. They made a lot of people rich. You sometimes look at the schedules and there are nothing but formats, particularly in smaller territories. If you go to places like Australia and Canada, a lot of them would like to make their own shows but what they get is imported formats. Whether that’s good for the viewer is an interesting debate.”

David Lyle accepting the C21/Frapa Gold Award 2012

David Lyle accepting the C21/Frapa Gold Award 2012

Elsewhere during MipFormats, National Geographic Channel CEO and Frapa founder David Lyle was the surprise recipient of this year’s C21/Frapa Gold Award. His comments on accepting the award were equally telling: “When we set up Frapa in April 2000, the aim was to have TV formats recognised and protected as intellectual property. Getting them recognised, we’ve done; getting them protected, we’ve still a way to go.”

“Frapa works to protect all you guys out there scribbling down ideas on backs of envelopes and trying to turn them into TV shows. Formats, whether they’re for TV or digital, deserve to be protected and, let’s face it, rewarded.”

It seems the route to format success, no matter how it’s measured or whether it’s based on passion, inspiration or second-guessing the market, is still difficult and potentially treacherous.

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