BBC Studios’ Matt Forde on Risk Aversion & Financing

Last September, BBC Studios restructured its formats business, creating a new global entertainment unit under Matt Forde as managing director. Bringing together three previously distinct areas—entertainment and music, factual entertainment and events, and international productions and formats—the global entertainment unit was formed to scale BBC Studios’ already thriving formats creation and export capabilities. Forde tells TV Formats Weekly about the benefits of the restructure, the breakout success of The 1% Club and finding innovative financing models to get shows off the ground.

TV FORMATS: BBC Studios restructured its format operations last year, creating the new global entertainment unit you oversee. Talk to us about this division and the benefits of the realignment.
FORDE: We are now a true global network. All countries we operate in sit in this global network, including the U.K. We’re present in 11 territories. The benefit of that is the ability to move IP around the network. We can build shows in different countries if it suits us; if we can’t sell it in one place, we can sell it in another. It also means we can leverage our skills from different areas. I’m interested in what we might do with live events, for example, where we have expertise in the U.K. with the likes of the Queen’s funeral, King Charles III’s coronation and, of course, Glastonbury, which saw over 50 million streams for content in 2023. It’s also helpful to be able to move production seamlessly around the world. It’s brilliant creatively that teams are talking to each other about ideas from India, South Africa, Australia, America, the U.K., France and Germany. We’ve also, in the past 12 months, added Brutal Media in Spain and Werner Film Productions in Australia to our global network. It’s inspiring for everyone within the network to get input and creative ideas from different areas of the world. It makes it a much stronger creative community.

TV FORMATS: We’re hearing a lot about risk aversion in the marketplace. Are you finding that to be the case, or are broadcasters and platforms still willing to gamble on compelling new ideas?
FORDE: We’re seeing people take risks. We have an investment in the U.K. indie production company Mettlemouse Entertainment, which has just had a commission from Channel 4. You might think that Channel 4 would be risk averse because of its financial stresses, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. We’ve seen other new shows get commissioned. For example, Silence is Golden for UKTV. There is no question to me that people are prepared to take risks. It’s about everybody being smart in the system. Looking at what the cost of making that show is. Have you considered that in the context of who you’re pitching to? Creative risk-taking is still there if there is a quality idea. You do see reboots, but they’re not straight reboots. When we remade Weakest Link in the U.S. and thought about what the tone could be, it’s more friendly, it’s more Jane Lynch than it is Anne Robinson. The successful reboots are done with skill.

TV FORMATS: Talk to us about the franchise management approach to keeping your returning brands successful year after year.
FORDE: We spend a lot of time on it because they’re so valuable in every way. They are defining as brands as well as being good business. Every year, we have creative exchanges in the U.K. All of the producers, sometimes the network executives, come to the U.K., and we have two days of sharing information about the last season. That could be new ideas and innovations, or it could be things that were difficult. We circulate all of those ideas. We have a team of four flying producers that go around the world to ensure the show is the best it can be. We have production markets where we also have a lot of expertise to call on. It is a 365-days-a-year project for Bake Off, Dancing with the Stars and now The 1% Club,which has already been sold to 12 territories. We’ll have our first creative exchange for that soon, which I’m excited about because we have learned so much. The shows evolve. That’s what’s great about what we do with Dancing with the Stars and Bake Off. It’s not the same all the time.

The same will be true for The 1% Club and Weakest Link, which has been licensed in over 45 territories, returning most recently in France and Spain.

TV FORMATS: The 1% Club has been one of the fastest-selling new game shows of the last few years. Why do you think it struck such a chord?
FORDE: When we started Dancing with the Stars, if you’d asked us what made it special, it would be a different answer to what we give now. Fundamentally, at the core, the idea of The 1% Club works, and it is brilliant. Every time we pitch just one example to people, they’re like, I love this. You don’t need to be good at quizzes. You need to have good lateral thinking. It’s fantastic that the audience [members] are the participants. The fact that it’s comedic—that’s a theme that you see as a trend at the moment. As you watch the show, you build relationships with the contestants. By the time you’re down to the last seven or eight, you’re rooting for two or three of them. It’s a real prime-time event that the whole family can play along with at home, encouraging co-viewing. It has connections, relationships and an enjoyable story. The app sits alongside the show and keeps the show alive outside its broadcast. It quickly became the number one trivia/free game app in the U.K. every Saturday night, and there have been 2.4 million downloads to date.

This speaks to another thing I think is important to all of us in formats: What are you doing to keep that brand alive when you’re not on air? With Dancing with the Stars, ticket sales of the live show have risen in America over the last two years. That speaks to something about fans and experiences. Brands must have a life outside of the linear broadcast of a show.

TV FORMATS: Are there significant differences in the format needs of streamers versus broadcasters?
FORDE: There are some companies that we work with that will say, “This show doesn’t work in digital, so it’s a no.” When I speak to Disney about Dancing with the Stars, they’re quite thoughtful about it. This brand sits in the middle of Disney, if you like. They get to different audiences in different ways. They have the ABC audience with a bit of catch-up. They have Hulu, which is mainly catch-up. And Disney+ gets it to another sector. With FOX and Prime Video [on The 1% Club], there was a lot of discussion about how to do it, and it worked out well for both. They both benefited from each other’s awareness. That is smart for everyone. It removes a certain amount of risk. You get to more people and can defray some cost across two platforms. Not everybody will do that model, but we’ll see more. There’s less buying of global rights. That is still going on. But I’m enjoying the more pragmatic approach!

TV FORMATS: Are there particular genres in demand right now?
FORDE: Feel-good is still a big part of it; something with warmth, connections and comedy. That lends itself to games and quizzes because you have a host who often comes from a comedy background. Jason Manford [hosts] The Answer Run,which is our new quiz show in the U.K.; it gave the BBC its biggest-ever daytime quiz launch for over a decade.AlsoJane Lynch for Weakest Link [in the U.S.], Jim Jefferies for The 1% Club [in Australia]. There seems to be a real demand for quizzes and games. There’s been an uptick in the number of versions of Weakest Link we’re making. The other area [in demand] is social experiment and reality.

TV FORMATS: You worked with Nippon TV on Koso Koso. What opportunities do you see for format co-development internationally?
FORDE: Creative processes are collaborative by their very nature. The Nippon TV adventure, if you like, has been brilliant. We’ve benefited from their creative sensibility. It’s helped us take something back into the U.K. that’s got a sense of something different. If anything, we’d like to make it more zany than what we’ve been doing. We see opportunities in Germany, Denmark, Japan, Korea and the U.S. You’ve got to work out which partners you think you’ll have a fruitful relationship with.

TV FORMATS: What other growth areas are you prioritizing?
FORDE: Scripted formats are proving a particularly strong area for us. We’ve launched a spin-off of Death in Paradise called Return to Paradise in Australia, and it’s done well. It recorded a total TV reach of 1.2 million and was the highest-rating drama on launch day. With scripted formats, sometimes you follow the original script. The most successful and interesting ones are where we take the premise and reinvent it for that local market. Ghosts in America is the best example. We’re now doing it in Australia with The Office for Prime Video. Game and quiz are going strongly. The big brands are so important. They are still alive and well. I feel very confident and passionate about where unscripted is going. It is doing a fantastic job for Kate Phillips [director of unscripted] on the BBC.