Money Talks

 

Phrases like “Is that your final answer?” “No whammies, no whammies, no whammies!” and “Come on down!” have all made their way into the pop-culture lexicon courtesy of game shows. Viewers have been tuning in for decades—in large numbers, too—to watch contestants try their hand at taking home cash and prizes. Hundreds of quiz-and-competition concepts have come and gone since the first TV game show, Truth or Consequences, hit the airwaves in 1950. Some, like The Price Is Right, have had the right alchemy to keep viewers tuning in for more than 30 years, and counting.

 

The Price Is Right made its debut in its current version in 1972, and still grabs high daytime ratings in the U.S. on CBS. The show made Bob Barker a TV legend during his 35 years as host, no doubt adding to The Price Is Right’s appeal with viewers. Contestants are plucked right from the audience for their chance to play one of 80 different games, like “Plinko” or “Hi-Lo,” in hopes of winning valuable prizes, ranging from motor homes and cars to trips and furniture. The show just started again in France and has been on air for many years in a number of other European territories. FremantleMedia produces the long-running hit, which came from the Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Productions catalogue.

 

The Goodson-Todman slate also brought another tried-and-true game-show success to FremantleMedia, Family Feud. In one time slot or another, the quiz show has been around for more than 30 years. This year the venerable game show, which pits two families against each other in a contest to name the most popular responses to a survey-type question posed to 100 people, will be on the air in around ten territories, but over its lifespan has aired in more than 40 markets.

 

Together, The Price Is Right and Family Feud form what Rob Clark, the president of worldwide entertainment at FremantleMedia, calls the “crown jewels” of the company’s game-show catalogue. “With those two shows, we don’t allow any changes to that format, at all,” explains Clark about adapting these shows internationally. “Those formats [work the way they are.] There really is no need to change them. They just tap into something that’s entertaining. They’re fun, they’re loud, the values that they have are still important.”

 

A more recent example of a game show with a winning format is Endemol’s Deal or No Deal. Since hitting the airwaves in 2005, Deal or No Deal has become a serious money-maker for the Dutch outfit. The show was a runaway hit on NBC in the U.S., and is a proven success worldwide.

 

“Without a doubt, Deal or No Deal has been Endemol’s biggest hit game show,” says Paul Römer, the company’s chief creative officer. “It’s captured the imagination of people all over the world and sold in 135 countries, including key markets throughout Europe, the U.S. and Southeast Asia.”

 

Making the show a success in each market requires fine-tuning and tweaking, but Römer says it’s essential that the game itself remains the same through all the adaptations. “As long as you never change the game mechanics, it’s possible to make a show work in any country. You can change everything about the look and feel, but never the mechanics. Each version of Deal or No Deal looks completely different, but the audience is continually captivated by the game-play architecture.”

 

The game play of Deal or No Deal doesn’t involve trivia-style knowledge or physical-performance components like most game shows. Rather, chance is the real deal breaker. It’s a game of odds that keeps the players (and the audience!) in suspense until the very end.

 

“Although Deal or No Deal is a game of luck, its most engaging element is that the viewers can play along,” says Römer. “Everyone at home has an opinion on what the contestant should do: They need to choose to take the deal or not!”

 

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? is another megahit that’s easy to play along with from home. Viewers can turn their couch into “the hot seat” and guess right alongside the studio competitor. Just a little more than a decade since the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? format made its debut in the U.K., the iconic quiz show’s popularity is still as strong as ever.

 

“Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? has been a global success story which continues to resonate hugely with viewers around the world,” says Mike Morley, the executive VP and chief creative officer for international production at Sony Pictures Television, which holds rights to the format as part of its acquisition of 2waytraffic. “Just some of the countries where the show has been licensed include India, Colombia, China, Venezuela, Malaysia, Australia, Russia, Singapore, Philippines, Kazakh­stan, Poland, the U.K., Germany and Israel. Most pleasingly, the introduction of a new variation, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Hot Seat, has seen the show become a regular ratings winner in Australia, even against tough competition from the likes of Deal or No Deal. In addition to demands for new twists, there are clear opportunities for the classic show to return and play to its old strengths.”

 

Morley says that a good portion of the show’s worldwide success is the flexibility of the format. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? has been localized for a slew of markets, and new elements have been added and modified to keep it fresh, all the while remaining true to the brand.

 

“The tricky part is tuning the format into the local culture and, at the same time, not altering the format’s unique selling points,” Morley explains. “Local humor, traditions and practices sometimes conspire to dilute a format’s potency, so you have to work creatively to improve the global product to get a good local fit. Localizing shows is one of the things we do best, and it’s key that we do it in a cost-effective way. Our team of producers and creators, who have years of experience, can advise clients on how our format brands will work best and offer solutions to address the budgetary pressures that broadcasters are feeling.”

 

SevenOne International’s smash hit Beat Your Host! has undergone some serious alterations as it’s traveled from one market to the next, and each adaptation has found its own success. The format centers on the battle between contestant and host. It calls for a combination of athletic prowess, skill, knowledge, bravery and willpower, and offers a potpourri of different games within each episode.

 

“We were able to create adaptations for the format that have turned out to be very successful,” says Jens Richter, the managing director of SevenOne. “In Sweden, the audience contestant is not [just] fighting against one host, they’re fighting against two hosts. Because we were able to find a team of hosts there who are extremely funny and reckless and outrageous, the Swedish version is an exceedingly funny one. There’s a lot of comedy in that version.”

 

SevenOne changed the format yet again for ITV in the U.K., swapping in celebrities instead. “With Beat the Star, we’ve found another successful adaptation. We do not have the same host playing in each episode, but we have different celebrities—a colorful mix of sports stars and TV stars—competing in each episode against an audience contestant. That show is really strong for us.”

 

The U.K. adaptation even made its way back into Germany. This year, ProSieben aired the Beat Your Host! version, Schlag den Raab,and then the U.K. adaptation, Beat the Star, in the spring as a special series.

 

Beat Your Host! and its various adaptations are aired as big prime-time events. Though not exactly inexpensive to produce, this type of show can add a lot of value for a broadcaster by creating a tentpole brand. Richter explains, “Big flagship shows, if they’re combined with creative marketing, can generate big awareness. This is exactly what you want to create for your channel. Those kinds of shows are not really cheap. They’re rather expensive to produce. Considering the high ratings Beat Your Host! is generating, it’s a big boost for the channel’s image and brand.”

 

Besides generating a lot of buzz, game shows can offer a host of other advantages for a broadcaster, one of which is drawing in advertisers with sponsorship tie-ins and product-placement opportunities. Avi Armoza, the CEO of Armoza Formats, sees this as one of the biggest selling points for the genre.

 

“Especially in today’s economic climate, game shows that incorporate product placement and advertiser sponsorship are very attractive to broadcasters. With ad revenues dropping by 25 percent around the world, advertisers are really foregoing the traditional ‘30-second spot’ for the chance to become more involved in the content of TV shows. This can be through general sponsorship of a show, or through individual product-placement spots for prizes, the hosts’ clothing, game-play elements (vehicles, mobile phones, etc.).”

 

Upgrade, one of Armoza’s most successful game shows, lends itself perfectly to product placement. Upgrade surprises people in their homes with a trivia challenge, and correct answers allow families to upgrade their shoddy appliances—TVs, living-room furniture, washing machines.

 

“Upgrade relies heavily on the use of brand-new appliances and home furnishings, and part of our production notes explain how this concept can be matched with a sponsor like LG or GE and even tied into the sponsor’s website,” Armoza explains. “These sponsorship deals can change from territory to territory, but some global brands could very well sponsor the global rollout of the format, serving as the sponsor of each local version in each territory. These are the kinds of new funding packages being looked at more and more by creators and distributors.”

 

Another selling point for game shows is built-in brand recognition. If a series is based on a classic board game that has been around for years, the show already has a fan base established right off the bat. This has certainly been the case for Debmar-Mercury International’s Trivial Pursuit: America Plays. Before the show made its debut in U.S. syndication, Debmar-Mercury had secured eight international options for the format and presold the finished U.S. version into two territories.

 

“It’s definitely the strength of the brand that has driven the interest,” says Beata Hegedus, the managing director of Debmar-Mercury International. “It’s an extremely powerful, globally recognized concept.”

 

Based on the popular Hasbro board game, this half-hour strip features questions exclusively from viewers, giving them the opportunity to play—and win—from the comfort of their own living room. The classic board game has been around since the ’80s and now the TV version, Trivial Pursuit: America Plays,is giving legions of loyal players the chance to reconnect with the brand, as loyal viewers.

 

“Hasbro originally approached us through the William Morris Agency as a result of our track record in producing hit shows for the U.S. and beyond,” Hegedus explains. “The whole aim was to maintain the original graphical elements of the board game, so for example the studio design is based on the board’s iconic features. We then brought in new elements, such as audience participation and interactivity, to give it a more modern and fresh feel.”

 

While Trivial Pursuit made the move from board game to TV show, oftentimes the situation happens the other way around. Game shows lend themselves nicely to be spun off into merchandise for at-home play. This area can be a great source for extra revenue.

 

“There’s huge potential for ancillaries with game shows,” says FremantleMedia’s Clark. “If you look at The Price Is Right and Family Feud in terms of flexibility, they’re brands. And because they’re brands, they’re usable in lots of different areas.” The Price Is Right has online and mobile extensions, and even a live Las Vegas stage show. Family Feud has a number of play-at-home gaming applications as well.

 

The product extensions for game shows have moved beyond traditional tabletop entertainment. Technology has helped add an array of new opportunities to extend the game-play experience to viewers. Endemol’s Römer says there are merchandise extensions for nearly all the company’s hit game shows, and many of these are far more advanced than the classic board game. He explains, “1 vs. 100 on Xbox Live Primetime is a great example of how a game-show brand can be taken to the next level by bringing TV game-show architecture into a game platform that is played in real time on Xbox Live Primetime.”

 

Sony Pictures Television and 2waytraffic have been very innovative in using technology to add to a show’s experience. Morley stresses the role this plays in creating a hit brand. “Interactivity is hugely important. Ten or 20 years ago, the only demand on a format was that it needed to be a good show. Now, a show must be a 360-degree proposition—in other words, we must be able to package it so that viewers can enjoy it not just on TV but also online and on mobile—something we’ve done very successfully with Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? The kinds of interactive elements we’ve incorporated have included introducing online dragons in Dragons’ Den [a show that sees entrepreneurs trying to secure investment from business experts] to breathe some extra fire into the business community when the TV show is off the air. We’ve also enabled consumers to interact with our brands through physical and digital merchandise such as DVDs, board games, mobile games, ring tones and mobile wallpapers, which are all part of our game-show portfolio.”

 

In these particularly challenging times, the advantages game shows present have made them appealing to broadcasters. Demand is healthy across daytime and prime-time slots for these kinds of shows, and new distributors are adding game shows to their slate to capitalize on this success. The Brazilian media powerhouse Globo TV International has an established reputation for its telenovelas, but the company has now started distributing formats as well.

 

Globo kick-started its format-selling efforts with five titles, two of which were game shows. The Spelling Game puts entertainment and education together, and Xtreme Connection sees people competing against celebrities in a variety of challenges involving strength, intelligence and creativity.

 

“We want to bring alternative content to the market,” says Raphael Corrêa, Globo’s director of international sales, about moving into the formats business. “We don’t intend to be one of the biggest format players in the world. We want to be a very good partner for formats, and we want to be recognized for the innovation and creativity that we can bring to our partners.”

 

Globo’s entrance to the game-show arena is a further testament to the strength of the genre in today’s tough market.