Finding Footing in the Format Arena

Rive Gauche Television recently made its foray into selling formats, and is finding success with ideas big and small.

Traditionally a distributor of finished programming, the U.S. outfit Rive Gauche Television made moves into the format market a little more than a year ago. “As the world moved to formats it was a natural migration,” says David Auerbach, the president of Rive Gauche. For him it was a particularly natural migration, as Auberbach’s background is in the creation of formats, having spent 17 years at Warner Bros. before joining Rive Gauche. There, he was involved in developing unscripted programming ranging from talk shows to game shows to performance competitions and more, working on everything from The Bachelor on ABC to America’s Best Dance Crew on MTV.

"What I want to do here [at Rive Gauche] is figure out how we [can] offer value and how we [can] provide a different experience than the other perhaps bigger distribution companies," Auerbach explains. “I realized that with my 17 years at Warner I’ve got relationships with pretty much all the unscripted producers in the biz, and there’s enormous pent-up frustration about the ability to retain IP and the fact that the domestic networks all want to own everything.”

Auerbach says he’s looking to tap into that pent-up frustration of the production community, "to offer my friends and colleagues the opportunity to take original formats and pitch them everywhere but the U.S. and hopefully bring them back to the U.S. as proven formats with [the producers having] the ability to own and control them. The reception from the producer community has been tremendous," he adds.

He points out that Rive Gauche has the ability to work with producers in a number of different ways. “If they have projects that they’ve pitched or shopped domestically and haven’t sold, I can say, Hey guys you got a tape? Let me run with it. Let me go try to breathe new life into it for you.” He continues, “You can imagine the reception to that is pretty good, because every producer thinks all their ideas are great, whether they sell or not, so if I can breathe new life into an idea that didn’t sell in the U.S., hallelujah. If they have ideas that are paper formats and I can help fund development to create a promo or a sizzle or something like that, they love that idea as well.”

Auerbach again harkens back to his time at Warner Bros. in setting this vision. “The beauty of my job at Warner is that I was a buyer and a seller; I was a buyer for syndication and I was a seller to the networks. I had the ability to look at the world from both points of view, and I realized that when you’re pitching to a foreign broadcaster it’s no different than pitching to a domestic broadcaster. Would they prefer a big proven hit? Yes. But you can’t always get that. At the end of the day, as a buyer your job is to recognize a good idea when you hear one and be bold enough to take a bet on it. And that’s sort of what I’m banking on; if I bring good ideas to the marketplace then some people will be bold enough to take that step and make that bet.”

The formats Rive Gauche is betting on all have simple, clear ideas, Auerbach says. “There are a lot of ideas [in the market] that are convoluted, that are complicated, and I think when you’re trying to launch something in multiple territories at the same time, I love to start with a good title or a logline that you can explain in one sentence in a program guide. That makes the job much easier for the buyer; it makes it much easier for them to sell it to their boss and ultimately it makes it much easier for the broadcaster to sell it to the audience.”

For the recent MIPCOM, Rive Gauche introduced two new titles to the market, both of which were a bit splashier than the company’s initial format launches. Auerbach explains, “I went with smaller ideas to the last market on a theory that there are a lot of new networks that want original programming and can’t really afford it. So, I brought inexpensive ideas that were well received, but what I kept hearing was, ‘Where’s your big idea? Where are the big prime-time ideas?’

“We looked at the success of Wipeout internationally—it was just a big, physical-comedy game—and the success of Money Drop—which is high stakes, with ability to lose or win big money—and we partnered with a production company out of Minnesota called Tremendous Entertainment on a one-line idea that I fell in love with, which was Ca$h & Carry, the show that gives you $100,000 and all you have to do is hang onto it. It is Wipeout meets Money Drop.”

Auerbach says the show received great reception from the market, and he’s now following up and turning that interest into deals.

Also on the Rive Gauche slate is a new show from David Broome, the creator of The Biggest Loser. “He had a demo that he did for truTV in the U.S. that didn’t go forward, and I was in a meeting with Dave and he mentioned the idea and I said, I love that. He said, ‘Well go, run with it! We’ll recut the promo for you.’”

The show is called Do You Know What You Did Last Night?, with the logline “What if The Hangover was a game show?” Auerbach says the format is already showing many positive signs of success. “We made a deal on Do You Know What You Did Last Night? in the room at [MIPCOM]. We had one buyer who wouldn’t let us out of the room without closing a deal. I’ve got an offer from a second territory, so we’re out of the gate and we’re running. I think that in the beginning the thing is to get people bold enough to take those steps; for everyone that’s on the fence, every time they read a press release or a story about somebody making a deal, I think that’ll make it that much easier for the next three people to make a deal.”