Exclusive Interview: FremantleMedia’s Tony Cohen

LONDON/NEW YORK: At the helm of a huge format and finished program production-and-distribution operation, FremantleMedia CEO Tony Cohen offers his views on new-media platforms, building brands that travel and working with creative talent.

WS: FremantleMedia has established relationships with a number of producers and rights owners. What advantages have you drawn from these relationships?
COHEN: The primary goal of working with producers around the world is to build brands—and it’s not just the show, it’s all the other ways consumers can enjoy a piece of entertainment and a piece of intellectual property. The work we do with partners comprises everything from financing, co-production, content development, working with talent, maximizing the commercial opportunities, distributing people’s rights and exploiting them. So there is an enormous range of things we do with producers and writers. A lot of producers work with us because of our international network and our ability to build brands and commercialize them. Our [FremantleMedia] Enterprises division, which exports programming and builds brands with people, works with everybody from Jamie Oliver the chef and Martha Stewart to Spike TV and Discovery. We also work with brands that are traveling the world, such as MasterChef, as well as The Biggest Loser from Shine Productions. We work with an enormous range of channels, producers and rights holders, and not only in television by the way; we also represent rights holders in non-television properties, too. And the reason for that is that they’ve seen what we’re able to do on a global basis and they know that we take care of what they have. We make sure that they get the best exhibition and treatment and they can trust us.

WS: How has FremantleMedia been extending the TV viewing experience onto new-media platforms?
COHEN: It’s true to say that FremantleMedia has been a pioneer in using new-media platforms and new technology to extend our relationship with audiences beyond the primary TV transmission. And as you rightly say, the reason we do that is because people are finding new ways to consume entertainment and therefore we want to follow our audience and our consumers. It’s a very big field, but the main things we’ve done include extending the key elements of a format onto other platforms. Examples of that would be what we’ve done with our iconic game shows like Family Feud. Over the last few years we’ve done SMS games, we have console games, we’ve got iPhone and iPad apps and I believe that to date it has been one of the most successful brands in social gaming—it’s had a dazzling career since it’s been up on Facebook. And we will continue to invest in the casual games and social-gaming opportunities that our game shows and other formats give us.
We extend the live experience around our talent shows using social media. There is an enormous amount that goes on around The X Factor and Got Talent and Idols, but a couple of examples would be the America’s Got Talent virtual audition which has run on both MySpace and on YouTube over the last few years. In fact, for some of our shows, in the U.K for example, on The X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent, we actually have a dedicated social-media editor who manages all the Facebook and Twitter accounts. I think we were one of the first to do that.
Of course, we distribute our content through on-demand platforms. We were the first producer to do a global deal with YouTube. Not only do we have channels, which we operate together with YouTube, but we also offer long-form content—Baywatch from our library is available for the U.K. There is an enormous range of other things we do on websites, particularly now with catch-up TV and the enhanced materials we provide for shows like MasterChef. We are excited about all these possibilities. We see business models emerging now both in pay and micro-pay, as well as in advertising.

WS: Advertising is coming back in some territories, but do you think broadcasters will ever return to the level of investment in programming that they had prior to the crisis?
COHEN: It’s clearly true that advertising revenue is coming back strongly in some territories. We’ve seen that reflected in increased programming budgets. Whether it’s going to go back to the levels it used to be, I don’t know. The received wisdom on this is that, with structural change, advertising revenue will leak away from the traditional free-to-air broadcasters and go online. But it seems to me that free-to-air broadcasters in particular still have that very precious asset, which is they can get mass audiences. And I’m sure that will continue to be very valuable.
As far as FremantleMedia is concerned, we are not assuming that it’s going to come back to where it was before. It would be great if it does, but as a prudent business, we are not going to assume that.

WS: Nowadays, because of the caution and the smaller programming budgets, what does a format need in order to travel to a number of territories?
COHEN: There is a universal set of requirements for something to travel and I don’t think it’s changed very much in the years in which this market has established itself. A format has got to be great entertainment, clearly formatted and well structured. At its best, it’s got to be something that will play in different forms, so it can be a daily, a weekly or a strip, and in terms of sales, if it’s got a demonstrable track record already, if it’s been sold and been a success in the U.K. and the U.S., for example, it will travel the world pretty consistently. And, of course, the FremantleMedia network is built on that trend.
In 2010 we’ve been responsible for three out of the top 11 traveling formats so far this year, which are Got Talent, Take Me Out and Password, which I think is more than anybody else. Take Me Out is traveling extremely well, as is Got Talent. The market is clear about what it wants. What you have to do, which is easy to say but hard to do, is also clear. America’s Got Talent is NBC’s number one entertainment series at the moment and Britain’s Got Talent is again the U.K.’s highest-rated entertainment show this year. We are seeing formats of entertainment really do work, particularly in prime time.

WS: Next year in the U.S. there will be two big shows, American Idol and The X Factor, both airing on FOX. How will you ensure that both shows have the production and promotion resources they need and what have you learned from similar situations in European markets?
COHEN: We have strong resources to produce and promote the television shows in the U.S. We bring focus to the nurturing of all of the programs that we do and we dedicate teams to them individually to ensure that they are going to be successful. American Idol and The X Factor will air at different times of the year. They are both fantastic formats. They’ve both enjoyed huge success around the world and we believe it’s great that U.S. viewers will be able to enjoy both of these shows next year.
When you ask how do you do a couple of major shows on the same network and ensure that they are both a success, I look around the world and see that on ITV in the U.K. we do Britain’s Got Talent and we do The X Factor at different times of the year—they are both humongous successes. In Holland we do Got Talent and The X Factor on RTL 4—both enormous successes. On M6 in France we do Got Talent and Idols at different times of the year—both big successes. So this is all about being really dedicated and passionate and focused on the shows.

WS: Where do you see opportunities for growth in the next couple of years?
COHEN: There are an enormous number of growth opportunities. They are not so much geographic, as opportunities in the areas we were just looking at: online pay and micro-pay, working closer with advertisers as well as producing for U.S. cable channels and children’s programming. We announced our Children’s and Family Entertainment division last year. To be honest with you, we see an enormous amount of opportunity in the world and it begins to expand the range of what we can do at FremantleMedia, which is good—as the world changes, we are changing, too.