Taking the Plunge

The establishment of production hubs is just one of the models being used by the format majors to efficiently roll out titles across multiple markets.
 
Thousands of contestants have suffered through bruised limbs and the public humiliation of being bounced, unflatteringly, off an oversized red ball in the quest for a cash prize on Wipeout. Most walk away no richer than they were when they arrived. But there is a consolation prize: they did score themselves a free trip to Buenos Aires.
 
The Argentinean capital is the home to the international set for the hit Endemol format, with a total of 29 versions having been produced at the central location. “Wipeout is probably our best-known example of a show produced from an international hub,” says Tom Toumazis, the chief commercial officer at Endemol.
 
The attention afforded to it is not surprising, given the pedigree of the show—following its initial rollout on ABC in the U.S., the obstacle-course format has been adapted for the U.K. (BBC), Canada (TVtropolis), Australia (Nine Network) and India (Imagine TV), among others. But Wipeout is certainly not the first format to have used this production model to efficiently produce multiple versions.
 
“We already [use a production hub] with Fort Boyard, which is one of the most successful adventure game shows in the world, and have been doing so since the early 1990s,” says Barnaby Shingleton, the head of entertainment at Zodiak Rights. Produced in France by the Zodiak-owned Adventure Line Productions (ALP), Fort Boyard is a “geographically specific format,” Shingleton notes, tied to the structure of the same name off the coast of France.
 
The case is similar with Banijay International’s 71 Degrees North, produced in Norway, where contestants must trek to a location 71 degrees north of the equator. “You can’t buy the format without producing it with us in Norway,” says Karoline Spodsberg, the managing director of Banijay International. “The location is keyed to the format.”

DOLLARS AND SENSE
The most compelling case for setting up a hub, distributors agree, is if it makes financial sense for both the producer and the broadcaster. Clearly, the types of shows best suited to the production-hub approach are those that require a large, expensive set.

“ABC was able to get behind a set being built on the scale needed,” says Toumazis on the initial U.S. deal for Wipeout. “However, there aren’t that many markets that would have delivered the necessary return on that kind of investment. There were a number of territories that wanted the show and were all interested at the same time, so it became clear to us that instead of building what is a capital-intensive structure in three or four territories, we would put all our focus into one location and fly in the contestants and the production crew from everywhere.”
 
The hub approach requires a tremendous level of efficiency, Toumazis says. “When you go there, it’s incredible, you’ve got the Canadian crew coming in, the British crew going out, the Ukrainian crew preparing to land, and each one of them is assigned a certain number of days to produce each episode. Making sure that the set is fully utilized on an ongoing basis is key. The logistics of getting people in and out is one of the things that you’ve really got to get right.”
 
The expertise that is developed when the model is well thought out is a big part of the format package sold to the client, notes Banijay’s Spodsberg. “Nordisk Film TV, which is a Banijay company, has been producing 71 Degrees North for many years, with amazing success year after year. They have more or less almost tried it all; there is no stone unturned in that pretty severe, dangerous, scary route that the crew is taking. When a broadcaster and production company fly in with their host, cast and some key creative staff, everything is up and running from day one. They don’t have to do their own learning, they don’t have to make all the mistakes that the local crew have made and corrected! The production will be more effective and the client will have a better chance of hitting the target, getting it right on camera first time round.”
 
JUST CAUSE
“When you’re investing in a centralized hub, you have to be pretty certain that the format has either an economic or a creative need for a centralized hub,” says Rob Clark, the president of worldwide entertainment at FremantleMedia, a company that historically has not made great use of the production-hub concept. “We don’t have a central production hub in a corner of Latin America,” quips Clark. “However, we do make multiple shows on the same set if it’s appropriate.

It was appropriate in one instance for Total Blackout, Clark says, with the Danish, Swedish and Norwegian versions all being produced in Copenhagen. “We had three sales that were made at the same time, three different broadcasters, roughly in the same part of the world,” says Clark. That set, however, would not be used by other broadcasters for their own versions of Total Blackout. “It’s only a studio, it makes no economic sense, no creative sense” to use that hub for other territories.
 
“I’m not anti-hub,” Clark continues, “but if you make the sorts of shows we make at the moment, then it’s pointless having a hub.” FremantleMedia’s big brands, Clark notes, including Idols, Got Talent, The X Factor and The Price Is Right, which require live studio audiences, don’t need a centralized location and, more importantly, would not work with one. “You couldn’t build one set for The X Factor in the whole of Europe.”
 
What does make sense for FremantleMedia—indeed, for all the format majors—is the use of flying producers, who are dispatched to sets around the world to make sure that all goes well with a local adaptation.
 
“If you don’t have the same production company making a show then you need a system of best practices and a system of enthusiasm and passion that is passed down the line from the originating producers,” Clark explains. “The flying producers are not policemen. They do not walk round the world with a truncheon or a gun telling people that they can’t do this and they can’t do that. The flying producers fly in during the preproduction stage and do workshops with the people that are making the show, and they try to instill a vision of what that show is. Then they fly out and let the people get on with it. They will come back for the first series day of production. They monitor, they correct things that are going wrong, they advise, they cajole. And then we see the finished version, and we pass on notes; we expect them to be acted on. It’s not a police role, we try to win people over. It’s sort of carrot and stick. There’s an awful lot of carrot and I suppose a little bit of stick. I’m often the big stick!”

Distributors note that flying producers are an integral part of the overall package sold to a production company or broadcaster; a package that also includes bibles, graphics, branding and more. “We want to provide maximum service to our local partners in each place,” says Kees Abrahams, the president of international production at Sony Pictures Television (SPT). “The traveling producers have so much knowledge of the format—they are there to explain what it says in the production bible, to implement the materials in terms of graphics, music, software, set design, a certain way of directing a show.”
 
Zodiak’s Shingleton has found that in markets where local partners do not take full advantage of the input from the format rights-owner, “the success rate of a format is much lower. Production consultants help ensure our shows are produced as well as possible. Sometimes local producers can feel threatened by production consultants, but it is important to remember that our consultants are not there to ‘teach’ producers how to make television shows; they’re there to help producers avoid the pitfalls and mistakes made in the original production, and to identify the shortcuts to make productions more efficient. These aren’t always obvious to experienced producers. A couple of days on the ground can mean the difference between a successful and profitable production and a costly show which fails to meet its potential.”
 
Ensuring the success of an adaptation, however, starts much earlier in the process; before flying producers have been dispatched, format owners need to find the right production house to handle the local version.
 
This is where having a network of production companies comes in handy, distributors note. “If you own a production company, then all the revenues and profits flow into your group,” says SPT’s Abrahams. “But there are territories where we have to bring in other people. Providing a high-quality compelling product that can be a signature for the client is the ultimate goal. Whether it goes to a wholly owned production company, a partly owned production company, or an individual that you know that you can set something up with or hire as an employee—the one thing that is important is that the people who execute our intellectual properties are top-notch creators and producers.”

Ultimately, choosing the wrong partner can be costly, resulting in poor ratings for an adaptation, which could damage the value of the franchise as a whole. “If you don’t protect and stick to the soul of the format, it can lose its strength very fast,” says Banijay’s Spodsberg.
 
A longer version of this article appeared in the MIPTV 2011 edition of TV Formats.