Endemol Shine’s Sophie Turner Laing

Finding the next global hit is on the minds of everyone in the international format business, including Sophie Turner Laing, the CEO of Endemol Shine Group. But she is equally focused on the diverse creativity that is coming out of the group’s more than 120 companies and the various formats that have already been adapted and produced around the world, including the timeless Big Brother and MasterChef. Some of the recent shows are incorporating new levels of technology and innovation.

WS: What growth do you see in big, factual unscripted formats?
TURNER LAING: What’s really interesting in terms of cyclical tastes is the appetite we’re seeing for bold, ambitious reality-meets-factual-entertainment formats. And I want to give a big shout-out in particular to the guys at Shine TV in the U.K., who over the last couple of years have delivered a rich seam of formats that have tapped into this trend, such as The Island and Hunted. We’ve been thrilled to see Hunted become number one in its time slot on CBS and get such an overwhelmingly positive response on social media. It’s a smart entertainment hybrid with roots in factual that’s innovative in its use of embedded crews and technology. It delivers gripping, adrenaline-filled content that moves the genre forward.

WS: Having ideas that can travel is essential to your business. What was some of the IP that traveled last year, and did more IP travel last year than in previous years?
TURNER LAING: We are very proud of the fact that in 2016 we traveled 50 percent more formats than our nearest competitor did—a total of 24 traveling formats across the year. It points to one thing I love about this business, which is that a great idea can come from anywhere. For instance, we have The Brain, which originated in Germany, and The Island from the U.K., then The Big Music Quiz, which has been produced in six countries over the last year and came from France. This diversity of origin is a real USP [unique selling point] for us, and I love the fact that it’s not only the English-language territories that are super creative in delivering formats that travel.

The thing that I am inordinately proud of with this group is our network and, in particular, the talent that is involved in adapting a format for another market. It’s something we don’t talk about enough. It’s a great thing to have a hit in one country, but that by no means guarantees that it will be a hit in another. Success in the country of origin gives the incoming broadcaster confidence in a format’s ability to deliver an audience, but you still have to tailor it. One of the most recent examples we have of this is Hunted. It started in the U.K., and we’ve so far had seven different versions across markets such as Holland, Denmark and Spain. And then it goes to CBS with a hugely scaled-up version. The point is that scalability, both up and down, is vital for the longevity of a format.

WS: Do you think the time has come for a great unscripted show to be able to thrive on an OTT?
TURNER LAING: Most definitely! We’ve all been beaten to the punch with Amazon doing [the motoring series] The Grand Tour, and it’s going to be fascinating to see what Ultimate Beastmaster ends up looking like on Netflix. The OTT platforms, like any deliverer of content, will have to offer a mixed-genre output in order to get the budgets to work and their numbers to work. It’s impossible to see how they can carry on producing only scripted at that kind of quality level without having a balancing act in the unscripted world. The trick, though, is how you find that show, which may be a known brand already or may not have been on the air for a while, and how you tell unique stories that allow an unscripted show to be “bingeable” rather than a weekly watch. It’s a big challenge and one we are very focused on.

WS: With regard to technology and innovation, how do you keep up with all the new developments?
TURNER LAING: Luckily, having a rather large group spread out around the world means that there are lots of people with their eyes on the ball. And just as a good idea can come from anywhere, a good piece of innovation can come from anywhere. One of our shareholders, 21st Century Fox, is very connected in this area, and they and Apollo have been supportive shareholders in pushing the boundaries of creativity and innovation.

We are doing a lot with both AR and VR [augmented reality and virtual reality], for instance. The key for us at Endemol Shine is not to be creating new technology but to be working in partnership with those that do in order to enhance the viewer’s experience in a million and one different ways.

WS: There is a lot of talk about what the next big global blockbuster will be. I imagine you and your teams have your eyes focused on that as well.
TURNER LAING: Yes, you are right, and it’s not only the teams and me. Our shareholders are asking where that next blockbuster is coming from, too!

We are inordinately fortunate to have two of the world’s biggest “super brands,” MasterChef and Big Brother, as part of our portfolio. Both are showing absolutely no signs of tiring at all. Recently, in Amsterdam, there was a Big Brother conference where broadcasters from around the world, including CBS, came together to share stories about how to evolve the brand. The secret sauce in both of those formats is the fact that we have talented teams evolving them bit by bit, so they stay fresh and relevant to an audience in 2017. We have another format called Your Face Sounds Familiar from our Spanish team, which nobody ever talks about because it’s not on in the U.K. or the U.S., but it’s actually in 39 countries and moving fast. One can often be guilty of only talking about shows with a presence in the U.K. or the U.S. as being successes, and that’s just not true.

Creating a global blockbuster is so much easier said than done. It’s about having the right approach and the right appetite for risk, because you are going to have to convince a customer somewhere in the world that it’s the right thing to do. We have a few bubbling in the creative pipeline that hopefully, I will be able to talk about within the next couple of months.

We had Peter Salmon join us last year as chief creative officer, and he and the Creative Networks team under Lisa Perrin have been shepherding all of our creatives into being laser-focused on what’s next. Can we say that what’s next is going to be a totally different genre than what one has ever seen before? Probably not. Remember, The Voice was a play on something that had been around before and that is a blockbuster in its own right. But I have a very good feeling that our creative heart in this world is beating fast!

WS: How does Endemol Shine provide outlets with diverse scripted programming?
TURNER LAING: We are incredibly fortunate to have some of the world’s most well-respected drama producers within our group. And they’re not just from the U.K. It’s true that English-language drama is the most in-demand, so we are very lucky to have a number of unbelievably brilliant people there. Black Mirror, for instance, is exquisite. It is Charlie Brooker at his very creative best. The show is in production for the next six episodes on Netflix, which will come out later this year. I love the fact that people even define his genre as “near-fi,” or near-future sci-fi because you watch and think that these things really could happen in the next five years. When you have a genre named after you, that’s something! And there are so many more, whether it’s Broadchurch from Kudos that has sold to 144 countries, or Peaky Blinders from Tiger Aspect, which set a fashion trend for newsboy caps!

But it’s not just the Brits. The fantastic Max Wiedemann and Quirin Berg, our drama producers in Germany, are working on Netflix’s first original German drama. Then there’s El Vato, our first commission for NBCUniversal, which was produced in Mexico and is now going into its second season. It is brilliant—the production qualities are second to none on a budget that the Brits would certainly find challenging!

We’re also very proud to have had our first original drama commission from a telco, with the brilliant political drama Brussels, produced by Endemol Shine Netherlands for KPN, which launched in January. It was KPN’s first foray into content, and it’s a really interesting example of how our customer base is growing and diversifying across platforms.

WS: Have you seen the quality of non-English-language scripted programming increase in the last few years, and does it travel better than it used to?
TURNER LAING: Oh, definitely. You and I have been around long enough to remember when nobody in an English-language territory would even consider reading a subtitle, and we were way too grand to allow dubbing. Just think of all that wealth of content that we missed out on for all those years! Hopefully, we are catching up. I think the BBC in the U.K. was the first to really support foreign-language programming, closely followed by Sky. The OTT platforms have been very welcoming to non-English-language content and are tapping into a discerning audience out there that likes different kinds of stories and settings. I think it’s great for us all, and it’s a growing part of our business. Last year, for example, we set up Endemol Shine Studios in Israel. We wouldn’t have gotten behind drama in the non-English-language territories in the way we have if there wasn’t the market for it that there now is.

WS: Many in the industry say there is just too much TV. Do you share that view?
TURNER LAING: I do think it’s funny that people talk about there being too much TV. Nobody ever complains about there being too many books, nor do people talk about too many films. But the current TV boom does, of course, come with its inevitable challenges, not least of which is a considerable strain on talent. There were an estimated 450 original scripted series airing in 2016 just in the U.S., and in terms of talent, all of those productions are looking for the best of the best. And rightly so—if you’re looking at multimillion-dollar shows, you need people with real experience working with those kinds of budgets, and there aren’t very many of them. What’s more, if you think over the last three completed seasons in the U.S., only 15 percent of all scripted pilots ordered remained on the air; that’s a very low risk-to-reward ratio.

All that said, there are many more opportunities today, and with drama being so distinctive, it puts a hugely valuable stamp of quality on any service, broadcast or OTT platform.

WS: Are you starting to see IP move back and forth from nonlinear to linear?
TURNER LAING: Yes—for instance, we’ve got these great French comedians called Le Woop Gang. They’ve got a strong digital following, and Canal+ is now trying them out in a special. It’s almost like piloting them. They may just exist long-term in digital and may not ever need to come back to broadcast, but the fact that there’s the flexibility, either way, is exciting. The one fact that I think is so extraordinary is that Mr Bean, which started its life on TV, has become the number one entertainment brand on Facebook and has more than 2.4 billion views on YouTube. There is a lot to be said for very carefully curating and growing your TV IP.