Producers’ Forum: Entertainment Master Class on Formats

NEW YORK: The Producers’ Forum is a new two-day initiative at MIPTV, organized in association with World Screen. Kicking off a series on the panelists at Producers’ Forum, David Lyle, the president of Fox Reality Channel, discusses the Entertainment Master Class on selling and protecting formats.

On the Monday morning of MIPTV, the Producers’ Forum will feature a 90-minute session entitled "Entertainment Master Class: How to Sell & Protect Your Format." David Lyle, one of the panelists, is excited to see formats taking on a more prominent role in the MIPTV conference agenda, now that the business is "an accepted part of the television landscape."

Pointing to fragmentation taking place in media markets worldwide, Lyle notes, "local drama production becomes somewhat problematic and so, in unscripted production, a lot of channels, big and small, turn to formats, because they represent a proven commodity."

A key trend he has noticed is a "leveling off of the playing field, by which I mean that the big three—England, Holland and the United States—are being challenged. Pretty well every territory in the world has generated a traveling format by now, and yet ten years ago that was very much not the case."

Lyle is set to introduce the Producers’ Forum session and will impart tips on how best to sell a format idea, from the basics—don’t be late for your meeting—to fine-tuning your pitch. "You’ve got about 20 minutes to do it, which in a way is quite focusing," he says. "It really forces people to ask themselves, what is the unique selling point of my format? And, the potential seller really needs to ask themselves what they’re after. Are they looking for a partner? Are they looking to license, sub-license? Are they really just trying to find out what someone wants? Sometimes people don’t understand where they sit in the pecking order. If you’re really new at it, chances are no one is going to trust you to produce this thing, especially if you’ve not done so before. So you shouldn’t be looking to sell it to a broadcaster, you should be looking for a production partner."

Lyle will be followed by Small World’s Tim Crescenti offering advice on how best to distribute a format. The session will be capped off by FRAPA’s Christoph Fey discussing format protection.

Asked about some of the key challenges facing those in the format business today, Lyle notes that producers and distributors will have to find new ways to stand out amid an increasingly crowded landscape. "Too many half-baked ideas get bandied around," he says. "We’re finding now that the formats that travel well, the formats that make money, the people who have put them together have really created blueprints for success."