FremantleMedia’s Clark

October 2007

By CONTACT _Con-3F4A1850B c s l Mansha Daswani

As the senior executive VP of entertainment and production for FremantleMedia’s worldwide entertainment division, Rob Clark oversees the international rollout of all of the company’s developed or acquired unscripted formats. He speaks with TV Formats about tapping into all of FremantleMedia’s resources to build on enduring hits like Idols and expand newer properties like Got Talent and The X Factor.

TV FORMATS: How do you work with FremantleMedia’s production houses in different parts of the world in creating and producing new formats?

CLARK: Worldwide entertainment is the hub of all of our entertainment output. We don’t centrally develop. We try and persuade our local development teams [to create concepts that] broadcasters around the world are looking for. We acquire from external sources and then we have a big production role. We try to educate our producers around the world about how to get the best from a format and we do that through bibles and through a flying producers system. The logic of it is, once we’ve made an error in one territory, it should never, ever be replicated in another territory. We should have a collective learned experience. Likewise, if we do something in one territory that we realize is much better and has given added value to that format, then we’ll try to make sure that as many territories include that element in the format the next time they’re making it.

TV FORMATS: When you’re taking on third-party titles, what do you look for?

CLARK: Something that you can instantly buy in to or that you watch, you go home and you think about when you’re lying in bed that night. Not everything is instantly obvious. Other times you watch something and you just think, wow! I’ll give you an example. Working Dog, the Australian company that first made Thank God You’re Here, came over to the U.K. to make a presentation to us. It must have been five minutes in and we just knew we’d buy it. It was different and it was also something that we knew that our territory producers could make. We knew it was something that broadcasters would want to buy. We’ve made it in 19 territories.

TV FORMATS: How does the distribution of the finished programs by FremantleMedia Enterprises support your format rollouts?

CLARK: That’s the importance of having a 360-degree company in some ways. If you look at Idols or Got Talent, the American versions were an entr�e for the format in many territories. I don’t think that had ever happened before. In the old days, we didn’t sit at home and watch Bob [Barker] doing The Price is Right, we watched [the British host] Leslie Crowther. In a lot of those countries that now do Idols or that will do Got Talent, their first contact with it was a dubbed or translated version of the American show.

TV FORMATS: Got Talent has become one of your biggest successes. What are the strengths of that format?

CLARK: It struck a chord at the right time. Variety and that sort of talent show had been off air for an awful long time and when it came back [with Got Talent] it looked original and fresh. It appeals to a very, very broad section of people, in prime time, which is becoming more and more necessary. It also has a genuine feel-good factor to it. It’s a celebration of the talent. Because we have no age limits and no talent limits, then effectively you will see your own age group on television and that’s rather good and rather rare these days. You get child actors, hip-hop teenagers, professional people in their twenties and thirties, and some real old-timers up there. I quite like that. It gives it a unique selling point.

TV FORMATS: How is The X Factor doing?

CLARK: The X Factor is one of those shows—and they’re very rare—that changes people’s schedules. It’s something that I watch and really enjoy. Our relationship with [Simon Cowell’s production company] Syco is very special. Cowell is good on those sorts of programs. Recently, it was produced in Spain, which for us is important because Spain has historically not really been a Fremantle territory. It’s on in Belgium again next year as well as Denmark and a number of other European territories. It’s a great, strong format.

TV FORMATS: And Idols is still going strong.

CLARK: Idols is a very unique show. The buy-in to Idols as a viewer is unprecedented. You watch it from the opening titles on day one and you’re laughing at the bad ones and enjoying the good ones. You’re thinking, I bet they’re not showing a lot of her because she gets through much further in the competition; [the viewers] get to know the way you edit it. It’s a show that you can watch as a group of teenagers or as a family or on your own and it speaks to every single one of those people in a very different way. And it’s a great journey, isn’t it? I can get very passionate about some of the shows that we make because I think that they do change lives and add value to lives. Idols around the world is wonderful. I travel quite a lot and I try and time a trip with the finale of an Idols. I was in Jakarta earlier in the year for the finale of Indonesian Idol. The president was there and the governors of Jakarta and of the two provinces that these two finalists were from, and they held it in this huge sports stadium; it must have been 10,000 seats, and it was absolutely packed. Or you go to Australian Idol and the finale’s held in the Sydney Opera House, one of the most iconic buildings in the world. It just has that great feel of Australia about it, and the new Australia—every nationality, race or creed that is found in Australia is on that stage at some point. It’s very different from a show we would have made in Australia 30 years ago. We’re making it in Vietnam at the moment—Vietnam is a communist country and yet the rules of Idol are that you have to vote, it’s a democratic process. It’s quite interesting how the program survives and thrives in many, many different territories. Sweden and Norway have just launched their fifth seasons, at the same time that we’re new on air in Slovakia. It’s a bit of a phenomenon and we’re hugely grateful for that format.

TV FORMATS: Do you sense that the market has moved away from reality programming towards more event, family-friendly variety shows?

CLARK: I’ve been saying for quite a while that that’s what would happen. Everything is cyclical in a way. Idols is in 39 territories. X Factor is doing really well, Got Talent is now in every major market. Those big shows are what broadcasters want. At the moment you can say feel-good—not necessarily family friendly—shows [are in demand]. I think they have to have broader appeal than just family. You’ve got to imagine that with a part of that target audience you’re after, you say family and they go, “Ewww.” If you look at most of our formats, they may be very mainstream but there has to be a little bit of an edge to them. That edge may come through in the casting of the judges or the casting of the finalists, but it’s there.

TV FORMATS: What do you consider in the casting process for the judges and for the contestants?

CLARK: Getting the right balance between the three or four judges on Idols or X Factor or Got Talent is probably the most important element in the production. They have to be knowledgeable, they have to be televisual, and they have to be able to summarize [their opinions] very quickly in a unique way. And then they have to play as a team and bring great vision to the show and add great breadth to what is just someone standing in front of them singing or juggling or whatever it is. How they behave is really crucial to how we as viewers experience that moment of tele�vision. So casting the judges is absolutely one hundred percent �ber-important. And then the casting of who goes through, who doesn’t go through, that’s really important because you want to see a real mix. You want to see the good ones and you want to see the bad ones. Depending on what sort of person you are dictates which bits you enjoy more.

TV FORMATS: What are some of the new formats you’re working on?

CLARK: We’ve got The Next Great Band, which is the FOX show. It launches in the U.S. in the middle of October. It’s the first time that musical bands have been in this sort of big-formatted talent show. It’s a 19 Entertainment/FremantleMedia format and we have a history there of success in the past [with Idols]. And then we’ve got Hole in the Wall. It’s a Japanese format and basically there’s a wall heading rapidly towards you and there’s a funny hole in it of a peculiar shape and the only way you can pass through it is if you get your body in the shape of the hole. Otherwise it hits you full on and knocks you into a pool. It’s a very simple game show. It’s not Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? It’s played for laughs. I have yet to meet anybody who’s seen it and hasn’t laughed.

We’ve re-versioned an old game show and retitled it Temptation. That has launched in syndication in America. It’s a simple stripped daytime-shopping and pop-ulture show. It’s not going to break any cultural rules or push the boundaries, but it’s fun and it’s engaging, and [it works] for a certain audience at certain times of the day.