Spin to Win!

Producers and distributors are putting innovative new twists on the perennially popular genre of game-show formats.

Long before the days of reality TV, viewers were flocking to their television sets to go along for the ride on a real-life emotional roller coaster with game-show contestants. The dramatic highs and lows of watching a person win (and lose!) life-changing amounts of money or big-ticket prizes in the blink of an eye have proven to be quite the draw—and the popularity of game shows has lasted through the decades. Some format distributors would even argue that they are more popular today than ever, as the genre has evolved with innovative hybrids, while others note that the appetite has been consistently strong for a long while.

“It’s true that there’s a cyclical nature to the TV business, but one of the genres that bucks that trend is game shows,” says Chris O’Dell, the head of global entertainment production at FremantleMedia. “There’s always going to be a market for a good game show. They’re very reliable, very robust.”

The FremantleMedia catalogue is home to a number of classic game-show formats, many of which are still on the air today despite having launched 30-plus years ago. With long-running series like Family Feud and The Price Is Right, there’s a nostalgia value for the audience and established brand value for the broadcasters. FremantleMedia has kept these classics fresh over the years by making subtle tweaks, explains O’Dell, while ensuring that the core gameplay remains intact.

LAUGH TRACK
“What we are finding is that these shows are actually really, really funny,” he says. “Comedy has become a very important part of the game-show genre. I’m not saying that Family Feud wasn’t funny in the past, but now we produce the show to play to that strength.”

In the U.S., comedian Steve Harvey was brought in to host Family Feud, while the ’60s classic Let’s Make a Deal, also part of the FremantleMedia catalogue, was updated for CBS with funnyman Wayne Brady leading the action.

Similarly, BBC Worldwide has seen its classic game show The Weakest Link get a comedic makeover recently, which is quite a departure from the original version. “The Weakest Link was always led by that sort of scary Anne Robinson character around the world, with women who looked a bit like dominatrices being incredibly rude to the contestants,” explains Kate Phillips, the creative director of formats at BBC Worldwide. “Now we’re seeing a much more joyful, entertaining feel. The version of Weakest Link that was brought back in France has a male comedian as the host. It has a different tone. It’s still about people voting off others who are the weakest link, but it is done in a much funnier way.”

Humor is also at the heart of one of BBC Worldwide’s newest game-show launches, You’re Back in the Room. The format features contestants who have all been hypnotized trying to work together to win money. Phillips says the format is “filled with belly laughs,” and is one that the whole family can watch together. “It’s what I call a 3G show, as in three generations of people—kids, parents and grandparents—can watch it and all find it very funny.”

FEELIN’ GOOD
Mike Beale, the executive VP of global development and formats at ITV Studios, agrees that game shows nowadays have a more family-friendly, positive feel. “It’s like we’ve gone backward to go forward,” he says. “We’re now more in the age of game shows from the ’60s and ’70s, where we want people to win and take home the prize. Ten years ago there were shows being developed where you wanted to see [contestants] fail. Viewers want to laugh now, and they want to watch a show with the family and not be worried that it’s giving out mean messages or anything like that.”

In step with this trend, ITV Studios has produced a second season of Keep It in the Family for ITV. The game show sees three generations of two families go head-to-head in a series of challenges featuring performances, celebrities and games. “It’s a very positive show,” says Beale. “Most of all, it’s just fun!”

Jane Dockery, the senior VP of international distribution for formats at Sony Pictures Television (SPT), says the requests she’s received from broadcasters as of late are for game shows that are “fun, lighthearted and family-skewing.”

She adds, “Comedy is a big thing, as is the physical aspect of game shows. We’re launching a new format at MIPCOM called Can’t Touch This. It taps into the success of the big physical game shows that we’ve been seeing go around the globe recently, but with a new angle to it and lots of humor. It’s cut for comedy and to really bring the family audience together.”

CLASSIC COMEBACKS
SPT’s catalogue also contains the megahit Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, which debuted nearly 20 years ago. Even though it’s a more traditional question-and-answer-style proposition, Dockery says the format is still in high demand. “If you go to pitch a broadcaster a new Q&A game show, often they’ll say, ‘I’m not looking for Q&A,’ but they are still licensing Millionaire. They know they can get a solid audience from it.”

CBS Studios International also benefits from the reliability factor of its classic format hits Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy! and Hollywood Squares. “Our game shows have a long track record of success, so broadcasters know what they’re getting,” says Paul Gilbert, senior VP of international formats. “One thing that a stripped game show does is that, if successful, it comes back time after time. Broadcasters don’t necessarily want to take a chance on a new strip, and I understand why, so they go to the old standards, the ones that have a great track record—Wheel, Jeopardy! and Squares being three of those shows.”

On the other end of the spectrum, Harry Gamsu, the VP of format acquisitions and sales at Red Arrow International, believes the days of conventional quiz shows may be behind us. “Part of the popularity in game shows coming back is that the genre has absolutely evolved,” he says. “It’s become a lot more ambitious. No longer does the traditional game show—contestants in a chair, lights go down, questions, money ladder—cut it with viewers.”

Gamsu says that even the definition of what is (and is not) a game show is increasingly fluid in the current marketplace, since there is a mashing of genres. “There are elements of reality within game shows, as well as comedy, talent and food,” he notes.
Among the Red Arrow International formats that demonstrate this melding of genres is Decimate. “It’s a game show meets a talent show in the way it looks and feels,” says Gamsu.

While more traditional Q&A-type shows still hold their place in daytime or access prime slots, in prime time it’s all about upping the action, according to Keren Shahar, the managing director of distribution at Keshet International. “For prime time, the feeling is that you need to go bigger,” she says. “Not just in terms of production value and budgets, but also in the gameplay. You need more action in the studio. That’s why we’re seeing an increasing number of shows that combine physical and mental challenges, like BOOM! We’re moving away from the blue-background Millionaire days to more colorful, energetic series, with a lot of interaction in the studio and even humor. It almost becomes more of a variety show.”

PHYSICAL ATTRACTION
At MIPCOM, Keshet International is showcasing the new game show Who’s On Top, in which players stand on a moving platform that rises and falls depending on the contestants’ answers. Shahar believes that the format’s combination of physical elements and comedy is going to be a winning mix with buyers.

“If you want to get a game show into prime time, everything needs to be much bigger,” says Avi Armoza, the founder and CEO of Armoza Formats, which is home to such game-show hits as Still Standing and Babushka. “The set has to be bigger, the premise has to be bigger.”

Armoza has also taken notice of how technology is opening up new opportunities in the game-show genre to engage with the audience. “This is enabling the potential to develop exciting new shows or give new life to solid, returning brands,” he says.
For example, The People’s Choice, developed by Armoza Formats in partnership with TF1, allows the entire country to participate in the game, thanks to its interactive structure.

“Technology is a key element for game shows now,” agrees Revital Basel, the VP of sales at Dori Media Group. “It allows for live integration of the audience, in studio and at home, interaction with viewers and the usage of apps.”

Dori Media Group represents the Studio Glam format 300 Sec. Ride, which features a specially designed “Time Track” moving platform that runs back and forth, from one side of the studio to the other. “The technology makes the show new, unique and innovative,” says Basel.

The Dori Media slate also includes Smart Face—Lo Sabe, No Lo Sabe, which takes the quiz action out of the studio and onto the street. The company has licensed the format to more than 30 territories to date, including Germany, Portugal, Brazil and Indonesia.

In addition to putting an innovative spin on the game-show genre, having an on-the-street setting eliminates the cost of building an expensive studio set. Another money-saving move is the use of centralized production hubs, which allow for multiple territories to share resources.

MONEY TALKS
Indeed, one of the key benefits of game-show formats is affordability. “Generally speaking, the cost associated with game-show formats is cheaper than that of talent shows,” says Ricardo Ehrsam, the general director of entertainment formats at Televisa Internacional, whose catalogue includes The Assembly Game and Generation Gap. “With a talent show, you may have the expense of celebrities or a huge studio, but with game shows, you can make them very interesting without spending that much money.”

Ehrsam also notes how a good game show tends to be long running, turning it into a high-volume proposition. Being able to use the same set for a large number of episodes helps to further amortize costs.

Also, as prizes are on the line, these series can provide plenty of opportunities to integrate sponsorships or product placement in an organic way, Ehrsam points out. “Game shows are the perfect example of a format genre that could be sponsored by an advertiser. It depends on the territory, of course, [as there are different legal regulations], but sponsorships are an important way to get money from different sources.”

One of Keshet International’s latest game shows, Trade Up, in which families compete to win a dream car, was devised from its inception with sponsorship in mind. Shahar explains that it was an attempt to bring in money from the automobile companies in Israel that have invested less and less of their advertising budgets in TV as of late. “That was a great opportunity for us to lure them back to our screens,” she says.

While many distributors report seeing an appetite for game-show formats in nearly all territories globally, Shahar has noticed a recent uptick in demand from Latin America in particular. “Historically, game shows haven’t been a popular genre in Latin America,” she says. “We’re probably not going to see pure quiz shows going on air there, but I’m seeing game shows like BOOM!, Who’s On Top and Trade Up, which are more colorful and lend themselves to a lot of interaction in the studio, becoming more and more popular in Latin America. This is great news for the industry. It opens up more slots.”
FremantleMedia’s O’Dell reports solid interest for game shows in territories ranging from the U.S. to Australia. “We’ve sold lots of game shows across Europe and, notably, the Eastern European territories have joined the party in recent years,” he adds. “We have a very successful version of Family Feud playing in Croatia at the moment, for example. There’s a market in Eastern Europe now for these types of shows that possibly wasn’t there 15 or 20 years ago.”

BBC Worldwide’s Phillips also points to Eastern Europe, as well as Central Europe, the Middle East and Africa, as territories that have been showing more interest in game shows—in general for the types of shows that can churn out large episode counts at a lower price point.

“For a distributor like BBC Worldwide, you can’t underestimate the importance of having low-cost, high-volume shows in your formats catalogue,” Phillips says. “They’re what I call sweet-spot shows. It means that when countries are buying them around the world and they’re on a tight budget, they can record two, three, four episodes a day. They’re pretty cost-effective to make and they can fill a schedule.

“Then again, if you wanted to, you could take those shows up to a much bigger, prime-time version,” she continues. “You could add celebrity specials and spend more money on your set and lights and graphics to make them prime time. They become a one-size-fits-all proposition, and that’s gold when you’re selling formats.”

PRIMED FOR SUCCESS
Red Arrow International’s Gamsu echoes the sentiment that flexibility in game-show formats is key. “Long-running, high-volume quiz and game is very relevant, but you need to be able to scale it up for the bigger slots,” he says. “The Lie and Decimate are two examples of formats that could work for both.”

Gamsu has seen more game shows making their way into prime time recently. “Perhaps they haven’t been there for a little while, but now with this mixture of reality and game, with these very big sets, it all creates a real buzz and draws an audience. This is helping them move back into prime time.

“The game itself has to be fun and engaging enough to capture a high number of viewers,” he adds. “It doesn’t matter how many bells and whistles you’ve got in it—the game has to be strong at its core.”

Increasingly, those bells and whistles include apps and other second-screen experiences. Game shows are, by their very design, interactive for at-home viewers, who can guess along with the studio contestants. So, are digital add-ons a vital evolution or an unnecessary distraction in this case?

“For me, interactivity is a double-edged sword,” says ITV Studios’ Beale. “If you’re watching a quiz show, you will shout out the answer if you know it. You don’t need an app to do that.”

He adds, “We strongly believe that the interactivity does have to enhance either the viewers’ appreciation of the show or the show itself. It’s got to offer the viewers something more than they would get from just watching a show in a normal way.”

SECOND SCREENS
“We are still in the initial stages of interactivity with game shows,” says Armoza, noting that channels are experimenting with the technology that allows for audience engagement. “I am sure that the demand will grow, and also we will see more game shows that will bring in the live interactive element.”

Armoza emphasizes the idea that game shows, if broadcast live, hold much promise in creating appointment viewing, which is harder and harder to do in today’s on-demand media environment. Creating this sort of live TV event requires broadcasters to make a larger investment and take a bigger risk, but Armoza believes that the reward could be worth it. “There will be some failures,” he states, “but eventually there will be a few hits that will change the reality of live game shows, and we will start to see more of them.”

Be it large-scale, live events for prime time or cost-effective, high-volume series for access prime, game shows have proven their value as a staple in the TV landscape. It remains to be seen whether or not interactivity can transform the genre into something entirely new and innovative, but the format industry is certainly keeping a close eye on it.
“Everybody is looking for the next big show; nobody is making any secret about that,” says Beale. “Trust me, as creators we’re obviously looking for it. In the meantime, there’s a very good tranche of solid, fun entertainment and game shows out there that are traveling.”