Living it Up

April 2008

Turn on your TV at any time of the day or night and you can find shows offering practical information on a wide range of topics such as home improvement, cooking or exotic travel destinations. But today’s media-savvy, well-informed consumers are looking for more than just a how-to series. They want a personal and engaging experience that transcends the boundaries of a pedantic, studio-based show.

And producers and distributors are fulfilling this demand with a diverse slate of lifestyle programming, from those with state-of-the-art CGI to eco-friendly reality docu-soaps to personal makeover shows and multiplatform content.

According to Cynthia Fenneman, the president and CEO of American Public Television (APT), public television remains one of the largest broadcasters of lifestyle programming in the U.S. However, more traditional “how-to” lifestyle programming, such as do-it-yourself, gardening, crafting and other hobby-oriented series, are a tougher sell internationally. “Hobby shows, crafting and sewing tend to not be of interest right now [abroad].”

“As opposed to do-it-yourself, it’s personal improvement, and I find that lifestyle series are getting more raw, they’re getting more personal,” says Andrea Stokes, the international sales and acquisitions manager at Canamedia. “You’re having people in a reality-type way revealing it all to the camera and looking for help; it’s going beyond just fixing up your bathroom, it’s basically fixing up your entire life.”

Two of Canamedia’s best-selling lifestyle titles tie into the personal improvement theme, particularly in the areas of health and wellness: Cosmetic Innovations and The Art of Building Bodies. Cosmetic Innovations covers the latest in cosmetic products, holistic cosmetic remedies, plastic surgery, laser technology, non-invasive procedures and the latest skin rejuvenation techniques. Meanwhile, The Art of Building Bodies, aimed at both men and women, is focused on the secrets of building sculpted, natural and defined muscles.

Tanya Kelen, the head of distribution at Breakthrough Entertainment, has noticed that a major trend within the lifestyle genre is the personal makeover show, with more viewers looking for an “emotional transformation” of the people in the series. For example, Breakthrough’s series Plastic Makes Perfect provides a behind-the-scenes look at a person’s choice for plastic surgery, but also conducts hidden-camera experiments by going out in the field and asking people on the street about their opinions on plastic surgery. “The series is demystifying plastic surgery and people’s notions of beauty in general,” notes Kelen. The fully completed first season of the series will be available at MIPTV, with the second season now in early production and slated to air on Slice in Canada.

According to Kelen, many lifestyle programs are even morphing into the docu-soap, with a narrative plot that will carry the viewer from start to finish. Plastic Makes Perfect combines some of those elements by “charting someone’s [journey] to tell a story from the beginning, through the middle to the end, about their trials and tribulations in plastic surgery,” explains Kelen. “It takes a tremendous amount of skill. It’s not just cinema verité anymore, you’re scripting dramatic arcs from these documentary subjects.”

The personal makeover trend in lifestyle programming has extended to the emerging topic of debt management. “There is a noticeable demand for programming on managing personal finances,” notes Fiona Crago, the general manager of Australia’s Beyond Distribution. At MIPTV this year, Beyond will launch a fourth season of the series Maxed Out, in which an expert helps the financially stressed to face their fears, get on top of their finances and work towards a brighter financial future. The series has already been sold to The Style Network in the U.S., as well as to outlets in South Africa, Poland, the Czech Republic, Sri Lanka, Latin America, Europe, New Zealand, Belgium and Brunei.

REALITY BITES

Characteristics of reality programming are creeping into the lifestyle genre as well. Anna Alvord, the director of international development at Scripps Networks, which has more than 19,000 hours of lifestyle programming in its catalogue from HGTV, Food Network, Fine Living and DIY Network, is finding that reality-competition series like The Next Food Network Star, in which contestants compete for their own cooking series on Food Network, and the interior design-themed HGTV Design Star, have struck a chord with audiences. The Next Food Network Star has aired in France and in Korea, while HGTV Design Star has broadcast in Sweden and throughout Southern Africa. Alvord says that these programs are “more like prime-time entertainment—you’re not looking to jot down information.”

The appetite for property and real-estate-themed series, meanwhile, has not let up. “There’s a slightly anxious obsession with property at the moment, which is likely to continue into the next year or so,” explains James Burstall, the CEO of Leopard Films. “It’s not necessarily about moving to new homes, although people are still wanting to do that. It’s about maximizing where you’re currently living and looking for hidden potential in your own home.”

Burstall says that Leopard Films’ Hidden Potential, a high-definition home improvement series that uses realistic CGI animation, fulfills these criteria. Burstall says the show, produced in high definition, has been one of the biggest hits for HGTV in the U.S. “Lifestyle can skew female [but] when a show looks fantastic and has got a real sense of depth and perspective with this great CGI, then it works for both men and women—that’s critical.”

Cineflix International Distribution has had success with the series Colin and Justin’s Home Heist, which sees well-known Scottish duo Colin McAllister and Justin Ryan attempt to overhaul décor-challenged homes in Canada. According to Cineflix International Distribution’s managing director, Paul Heaney, the personable hosts factor into the success of the show, but high production values matter too. “I think it has a terrestrial quality and it stands out from the crowd, not just because Colin and Justin are very professional presenters, [but also] it has that professional finish. Broadcasters like that—they will buy into [the series] even if it’s not hosted.”

At MIPTV, Cineflix will be unveiling a new eco-themed property show entitled World’s Greenest Homes, which Heaney is “expecting big things out of.” Produced in association with Discovery’s Planet Green in the U.S. and HGTV Canada, the series features an array of innovative homes that don’t sacrifice comfort or elegance to be eco-friendly. World’s Greenest Homes builds on the success of Cineflix’s third-party green-themed property series Eco House Challenge. “Property is still big, it still works,” says Heaney. “Obviously a lot of angles are being covered, so again, you’re finding that unusual angle to cover.”

In fact, green-themed programming continues to be a strong segment of the lifestyle genre. Scripps Networks is building up its library of “green” programming with series like the reality docu-soap Living with Ed, following eco-activist Ed Begley, Jr. and his wife Rachelle, and Carter Can, which tackles home-renovation dilemmas. Scripps’s Alvord says that it is necessary to make these eco-friendly programs accessible to a broad audience. “One thing we’re doing with green programming is that we’re not beating people over the head with ‘this is what you have to do to save the planet.’ It’s more like, ‘these are easy things that everybody can do; everybody can be making a difference.’” For example, in each episode of the series Carter Can, there is a segment where host Carter Oosterhouse offers a green tip to viewers, which can range from making recycled wallpaper to finding new uses for old furniture.

The travel genre, from which a lot of eco-programming has spun off, continues to be attractive to buyers. Ian Cross, the managing director and executive producer of Pilot Productions in the U.K., best known for its travel franchise Globe Trekker, notes that hybrid food-and-travel series remain strong performers, particularly in emerging markets such as the Asia-Pacific. This year, Cross is hoping to expand Pilot’s World Café Asia series to a Middle Eastern version that will highlight cuisine from that region, and is also looking to develop other international spin-offs.

In a twist on the travel genre, Pilot Productions is also offering up at MIPTV one of its newest series, Metropolis, billed as a “city slicker’s guide” to the architecture, design and urban styles of some of the most recognized cities in the world, ranging from London to Bali.

However, Cross is more cautious about lifestyle programming that may be too niche, citing Pilot’s own golf and travel series Adventure Golf. While Cross admits that the Adventure Golf series was a hit with air travelers in business-class cabins, this did not turn out to be a TV series that could attract a broader audience.

EXTENDING THE GOOD LIFE

Producers and distributors are also recognizing the importance of extending lifestyle programming to new-media platforms. Lightworks Program Distribution, incorporating Sandra Carter Global, is ensuring that its lifestyle programming is complemented by an active online presence. The company is currently working with an ad agency to syndicate webisodes based on shows like the international travel and cooking series World of Taste; The Carefree Gardener, which provides a deserving family with a new garden; the travel-and-beauty series Shop the World for Beauty Secrets and the Hollywood entertainment-themed The Red Carpet Reporter, to U.S. station websites and other Internet channels.

Knight Enterprises, a Canadian production company specializing in cooking shows, has sold programs, including Licence to Grill and This Food That Wine, to numerous countries. President and executive producer Chris Knight believes that it is imperative to extend brands beyond linear broadcast and his company not only owns the distribution rights to its catalogue, but has a range of ancillary rights as well. “We consider ourselves brand managers more than television producers, because we have webisodes, we have content shot specifically for the Internet as opposed to content shot for television which is diced and sliced and turned into bad Internet content. So when we develop a program now, there is content for multiplatform, there are books, there is music, there is merchandise, host appearances and endorsements. We manage the whole thing.”

Bennett Media Worldwide is aggressively pursuing a multi-platform approach for its male-skewing lifestyle programming this year. The company is launching MEN7, a multiplatform lifestyle and entertainment network aimed at affluent men aged 25 to 54. The MEN7 network will launch with a weekly flagship high-definition television series, The MEN7 Show; a MEN7.tv broadband website and daily episodes syndicated out to more than ten broadband, IPTV and mobile distribution partners that include Veoh, YouTube, Joost, Amazon and Vuze.

Paul Rich, the CEO of Bennett Media Worldwide, believes that the flagship series The MEN7 Show, along with the MEN7 network, are tapping into the interests of its clients, mostly emerging cable and satellite networks, who believe that the company is “hitting their target audience in the areas that we’re covering within lifestyle, which is entertainment, discovery, action, improving yourself, health, beautiful women and just living. Those are the areas that we’re emphasizing and it seems to have struck a chord with our customers.”

There is also considerable demand for female-skewing and male-skewing lifestyle programming. “Female [channels] are more established but the male [channels] are catching up,” says Beyond’s Crago. “It would be fair to say we have more questions about male-oriented programs at the moment.” According to Crago, wedding-related programming is “hugely popular for many female channels” along with dating, health and wellbeing, cooking, finances and travel, but “male channels seem to have an inexhaustible appetite for mega-structures and big engineering shows and anything about cars and sports.”

Charismatic personalities behind a lifestyle series continue to be important, but as lifestyle series edge toward personal makeover shows, Breakthrough’s Kelen says that the host does not serve the standard role that he or she once did. “I don’t think hosts are traditional hosts anymore—they’re facilitators to help people. They’re lifestyle coaches, they’re relationship coaches, they’re making over your spiritual and emotional life, as well as making your life and your space more beautiful.”

For distributors like Janson Media, a well-known host continues to be a strong selling point. “Our lifestyle content consists primarily of a strong cooking and cuisine category, and the better-known chefs—even celebrity chefs—are key to salability,” says Stephen M. Janson, the president of Janson Media, who cites Jacques Pépin: Fast Food My Way as one of the company’s bestselling cooking programs.

EXPERT APPEAL

Meanwhile, Knight says that “the TV consumer these days is so sophisticated that they will not stand for or tolerate somebody who is learning as they go on camera,” and believes that using well-trained “civilian” hosts in a lifestyle program is the best approach. Knight Enterprises runs a “TV Boot Camp” where people are taught how to be hosts on television. “In the last 11 years we’ve worked with 19 different hosts, none of them with any previous television experience. We feel that part of our talent is working with ‘civilians’ if you will and very quickly giving them the skills necessary to be excellent television hosts.”

As lifestyle programming continues to expand in new directions, it still comes down to the “takeaway” factor, or the payoff for the viewer at the end of watching a lifestyle show, that distinguishes a successful lifestyle show from a mediocre one, says Leopard Films’ Burstall. “At the heart of all our lifestyle shows is merely good journalism. If you’re not learning something new or hearing information that you’ve never even thought about before, then what’s the point of watching it? Basically the lifestyle audience has become much more critical and much more demanding—that’s a good thing. If you want to do well in this field, you’ve got to stay one step ahead. You can’t get complacent because the audience won’t accept it.”