SevenOne On a Format Hot Streak

With a number of U.S. deals under its belt, including You Deserve It piloted for ABC and Benidorm Bastards in the works for NBC, SevenOne International’s format business is running at full steam.

As the worldwide distributor of the ProSiebenSat.1-owned Red Arrow Entertainment Group, SevenOne International is able to mine the talents of Dick de Rijk, dubbed the "godfather of game shows," through an overall development deal. Rijk, behind the global hits Deal or No Deal and Set for Life, has brought to the SevenOne catalogue the new title You Deserve It, a feel-good format for the whole family.

Jens Richter, SevenOne’s managing director, says You Deserve It was the first show released from the Dick de Rijk alliance because it seemed to be sitting within "a new genre of entertainment." He explains, "It’s a hybrid format. It combines game-show elements with reality. It’s the first game show where you don’t play for yourself, you play for somebody else who deserves it—who either went through some misery or had some trouble in their life, but is a great person and also did a lot for other people. Now it’s a moment in time when that person is suffering and someone should stand up and play for that person."

SevenOne went out with Rijk and Kinetic Content, Red Arrow’s U.S. production company, to pitch the show to the U.S. market last fall. "We went out with a fully developed concept for You Deserve It, with fully developed game play," explains Richter. "It was developed in a way that we had a whole show on the laptop, could connect the laptop to the screen and have the entertainment boss playing the actual show with us. We also had many pilots produced where we featured a possible case of a person who we believe deserved to be played for. That pitch turned out to be hugely successful. At the end we made a deal with ABC," with the network giving a pilot order.

At the start of the year, Kinetic produced a pilot for ABC, and with that pilot SevenOne headed to MIPTV to introduce the show to the international market. "The format was perceived in the most amazing way, beyond our dreams," says Richter. "The buyers love it, the people love it. For various reasons: it’s a great concept, great entertainment. It is different and it is innovative."

Sat.1 quickly came on board for Germany, and deals were secured in Italy and the Middle East before MIPTV had wrapped. Since then, a deal has been done with Spanish free-to-air broadcaster Antena 3. In addition to its emotional appeal, the format’s clever game play has also been a pull, notes Richter. "The game-show component is smart and surprising and catchy—it’s almost addictive. That makes for great television and our clients at MIP totally got it."

In addition to Rijk, Red Arrow has a number of other alliances in place, including with creative minds such as Israeli entertainment producer Omri Marcus; a co-development deal with Phil Gurin, the creator of Miss USA and Singing Bee; and an exclusive first-look agreement with Genetic Entertainment.

Richter acknowledges, however, that a good format idea can come from anywhere, even a smaller-sized independent, which was the case with the hit Benidorm Bastards. "Benidorm Bastards is the role-model case of how you can cooperate with an independent producer in the most perfect way," says Richter. "Benidorm Bastards was created by a Belgian production company called Shelter, run by Tim Van Aelst. Tim created Benidorm Bastards for a Belgian channel called 2BE, and that is a secondary channel in the market. It’s a smaller channel of vtm; a channel that normally has 8- or 9-percent market share. When Benidorm came out, it went beyond the 20-percent market share, which is huge."

The show went on air about a week before MIPTV 2010, catching Richter’s attention straightaway. "I saw the format, I called Tim and said, ‘I love your format. We would love to sell it for you.’ Within a couple of telephone calls, we also fell in love with each other in a way and shared a vision for the show, made a deal and then signed the deal on Friday, and on Monday MIP started. Within a very short period of time, deals were exposed for Germany, Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Korea and other territories. Since then, rating record after rating record was created."

A year later, ahead of MIPTV 2011, Chris Coelen, founder and CEO of Kinetic, decided it was time to pitch the show to the U.S. market. "Chris had the fantastic idea to package Benidorm Bastards with Betty White," explains Richter. "Betty White is one of the hottest comedy talents in American television. She is an icon. Young audiences love her because she’s a riot, she’s wild. The idea to have Betty as godmother of Benidorm Bastards, as the face of the show, is just brilliant. Chris pitched it to the American broadcasters and immediately NBC fell in love with the show and ordered 12 episodes."

Richter says he expects the finished U.S. series will travel well globally. "I totally believe Betty White will also be a fantastic success on international television. At MIPCOM, the version with Betty White will be one of our key shows."