32 Flavors’ Alex Baskin

Launched last summer under the leadership of producer Alex Baskin, 32 Flavors has among its production slate Bravo’s Emmy-nominated juggernaut Vanderpump Rules and its buzzy spin-off The Valley, along with The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and The Real Housewives of Orange County. Baskin, CEO, talks to TV Formats about what audiences are looking for in reality TV today and the approach to iterating on hit franchises.

TV FORMATS: What’s cutting through right now in unscripted entertainment?
BASKIN: There’s a great polarity: viewers are sticking with trusted series that offer up a predictably comfortable experience, and they’re also sampling and, in breakthrough cases, embracing the decidedly new and different. They’re still watching undeniable characters on an epic journey, whether it’s one they’ve seen before or it’s something new. What they’re not watching, though, are warmed-over offerings that don’t either engage them in a way they’ve come to expect or stimulate them in a fun, different fashion.

TV FORMATS: What was the drive behind setting up 32 Flavors?
BASKIN: I launched the company at a time in which the business was fundamentally challenged, but my hope—and my bet—was that a dynamic, nimble content engine could capture the marketplace shifts. The company aims to live in both the conventional business and also tap into the emerging business in alternative financing and distribution. We’re consuming more content than ever, just in different forms—and the exciting mission is to meet viewers and consumers where they are.

TV FORMATS: How has 32 Flavors approached iterating on a franchise like The Real Housewives to make sure each version is distinct but also has its common threads?
BASKIN: A franchise like The Real Housewives might have signature elements—e.g., the taglines, the chapter cards, etc.—but in between those format items, each series lives on its own. As a producer, you have to respect the franchise enough to live within its confines but also value your series enough to find its own identity, most significantly through casting but also through tone, cultural nuance and other choices that wouldn’t belong elsewhere.

TV FORMATS: How does 32 Flavors evolve hit IP?
BASKIN: Shows get harder, not easier, to make through successive seasons. There’s often less juice to squeeze if you take the same approach you did previously, regardless of genre (docuseries, format, etc.). We’re charged with staying in front of the audience, i.e., not responding to their input based on past seasons but in giving them a new, fresh experience each season. I don’t believe in change for its own sake, but I do think you have to approach each season as though it’s the first, and you have to respect that the audience might tune in because of familiarity and name recognition, but they’ll tune out just as quickly unless you actively engage them.

TV FORMATS: What are some of the biggest production challenges of a) the U.S. market and b) the reality entertainment space?
BASKIN: On a macro level, the fundamental challenge is the diffuseness of the viewing audience. The audience can, at any given time, watch anything ever made in the history of entertainment, play a game, interactive or otherwise.

The contraction of conventional business, which rested on the assumption that masses of viewers would watch the same thing at a given time, is a natural function of this reality, as is the conservative approach to reboot, repackage and remake.

In an extraordinarily crowded landscape, breaking through with something new and different—especially something that needs an introduction and an explanation—is ever more challenging.

TV FORMATS: What’s next for reality entertainment?
BASKIN: I’ve been reading Cue the Sun!: The Invention of Reality TV, and if the past is prologue, then the future of reality will be, broadly, its story to date: wildly varying expressions of the human experience, both high- and lowbrow, in different and unexpected forms.

If that sounds like a cop-out, it’s because it’s the truth! Those of us who make reality embrace the unexpectedness of the stories we’re telling—and our story as an industry is as winding and unknown as any great season arc. But I do know that as the consumer experience and our business models shift and change, interest in the content itself is as robust as ever.