Team Spirit

Distributors, producers and broadcasters are aligning across borders to jointly develop concepts.

It would appear that the formats business is taking a page out of the international drama playbook, at least when it comes to creative collaborations. Over the last few years, an increasing number of distributors have been entering into co-development partnerships with broadcasters as they look for new ways to come up with the next big global hit.

“There’s no doubt that co-development is the future,” states Alon Shtruzman, the CEO of Keshet International (KI). “We see more parties collaborating on projects. The economy, competition and obviously [market] saturation are all supporting the trend toward co-development. We think it’s more than a trend; it’s strategy.”

Avi Armoza, the founder and CEO of Armoza Formats, says that development alliances result in both financial and creative benefits. “The creative benefit is important in coming up with formats that travel, as it can help bring you to a new and innovative result through the combination of cultures and ways of thinking,” Armoza explains. “This is particularly important in the current industry, where the widespread consolidation often leads to stagnation in creativity. The financial benefits can either come through decreasing your risks or through enabling you to come to an improved product with higher potential.”

Guillermo Borensztein, the VP of co-productions and new business development at Argentine broadcaster Telefe, lists three main reasons for entering co-development partnerships, as it has done with Sony Pictures Television, FremantleMedia, Warner Bros.’ Eyeworks and KI.

“The first is [they enable us to] continue working with leading players that can provide us added value. Second, these agreements are important for us to strengthen our presence in the world as a producer that generates innovative content. Finally, in some cases, we also satisfy the needs of our own screens. That [success] allows the distributor to introduce a proven format.”

BEARING FRUIT
Borensztein says he and the team at Telefe’s content and international business segment (led by Tomas Yankelevich) have been “very pleased” with its alliances so far. This year Telefe aired Dueños de la Cocina (Kitchen Owners), which was co-developed with Warner Bros.-owned Eyeworks Argentina. Next year, Telefe is expected to air an entertainment format that was developed in collaboration with KI, Shtruzman says, having inked a partnership with the broadcaster in 2015.

KI has been very active on the co-development front over the past year, particularly in Latin America, the U.S. and China. In the U.S., KI has a deal with Telemundo Studios “to co-develop and produce new Spanish-language formats and series to air on the Telemundo network,” Shtruzman says. “It’s a big step for us. It’s going to be the first Spanish-language original produced under the KI banner. We believe the intellectual and creative collaboration between Telemundo and KI can result in very exciting projects.”

Across the border in Mexico, meanwhile, KI has a broader deal with Televisa, which has the right to remake some of its formats in the next three years. “We have shows like Loaded—which has also been commissioned by Channel 4 in the U.K.—already in the works as a Spanish production. In the next two years we’re hoping to have at least three or four more projects.”

SKILL SETS
KI’s alliances over the last year demonstrate how bullish it is about opportunities in Latin America. “We find that the Latin market is dynamic and creative,” Shtruzman says. “The networks are very opinionated, and they know what they want. Part of the essence of co-development is bringing to the market not only IP but also skills and expertise. Historically we only came to the markets with a bag of great IP. Now we also have a bag of skills, creativity and experience. It’s so exciting when two parties from different cultures collaborate to develop one project, and we feel that the collaboration with Latin American and Hispanic networks is very creative and fruitful.”

Shtruzman says that KI has also been “very active” in China with deals like the one it has with Huace Group/Croton Media to partner on the development of local versions of Traffic Light and Loaded. “It’s a really exciting project for us since these series are two of a handful of scripted formats ever to be imported into China from outside of Asia. It’s also the first time either format has been remade for the Asian market.”

Shtruzman adds, “China is like a theme park for TV creators. There are so many TV stations and the audience is so diverse and hungry for great television.”

Armoza Formats also has co-developed projects in China, aligning with Sohu.com for The Running Show. In Europe, meanwhile, the distributor partnered with TF1 on the interactive studio-entertainment format The People’s Choice and with TV Barrandov on The Final Cut-Down. The company is also working with TVA in Canada on several projects and is now collaborating on a new concept with the broadcaster.

“As Armoza Formats has grown, our mission has evolved and shifted from an Israel-centered focus to encompass a more global perspective,” Armoza says. “Our international partnerships and co-operations around the world enable us to realize this evolution by combining Israeli creativity with key industry players and open up strategic, creative and commercial possibilities that might have never otherwise emerged.”

HOT SPOTS
For ITV Studios, its longest-running development alliance has been with Reshet, partnering with the broadcaster on a joint venture called The Lab almost three years ago to create ideas for the Israeli market, the U.K. and the U.S. that could then be formatted elsewhere.

“We have five or six formats that came out of that, produced and on air,” says Mike Beale, the executive VP of global development and formats at ITV Studios. “The biggest one in the sense of ongoing [production] is Game of Chefs. It’s just been announced for its third season in Israel, we’ve had seasons two and three commissioned in Romania and it’s been made in Germany.”

More recently, ITV Studios Global Entertainment (ITVS GE) aligned with Formata Production and Content, a start-up in Brazil run by Daniela Busoli. “That is a dual relationship: format production and also development. We’ve got a couple of things coming from that, both going into Brazil and coming out of Brazil,” Beale says.

ITVS GE also entered into a deal with Korea’s CJ E&M that Beale refers to as less of a development pact and more of a “format swap.”

CJ E&M has a much broader relationship with Endemol Shine Group. “We have invested our best creators and producers in creating a show that has the potential to become the next big thing,” says Jin Woo Hwang, the head of global format development at the Korean media group. “The producers of Endemol Shine’s Big Brother and CJ E&M’s The Genius Game have been working together, and we have created a completely new format called The Society Game.”

For Endemol Shine, the pact allowed it to secure a foothold in Korea, which Lisa Perrin, CEO of Endemol Shine Creative Networks, refers to as an “upcoming hot Asian market. [The partnership] really made sense for us and our team in Asia.”

Collaboration in practice included plenty of face-to-face meetings between the Endemol Shine and CJ E&M teams. “We’ve had probably four or five big meetings either in Korea or Cannes,” Perrin says. “We’ve split it between Europe and Asia. We’ve had the team from our Asian market [participating], but we’ve also supported it with good creatives from around the group.”

“In practice, it’s face to face as often as you can, but realistically that’s two or three times a year,” ITV Studios’ Beale says of the collaboration process. “And give it time. It’s not a half-hour meeting in Cannes or any other market for that matter. Spend time with each other, at least a day if not a couple of days in those meetings. And then [you need] regular catch-ups. The worst thing about development is if stuff goes into a limbo and isn’t moving forward. With Reshet we have Israel, London and L.A. It’s early morning L.A., early evening Israel, and you block out a couple of hours and you have those regular calls, fortnightly or monthly, to make sure that stuff is moving. It’s easy to get lost. Communication is very important.”

Borensztein at Telefe notes the importance of clearly defining your needs at the outset. “From here, parties exchange ideas and pre-select concepts to develop. We coordinate meetings between the teams that in most cases include traveling. We send our suggestions, they send back theirs and we go back and forth until we all feel comfortable with the content and then introduce it to the decision-makers. Up to [this point] it’s just an approved idea [for] development that includes a proposed structure of the show. If it’s greenlit, we enter into preproduction, which includes developing a bible, budgeting, etc., with many more people involved on both sides.”

Outside of constant communication, KI’s Shtruzman says that for the co-development process to work, it needs “designated champions” from each partner. “Co-development is all about teamwork and integrating different processes and sensibilities. Each designated champion obviously has a team behind him/her, and each champion brings the local sensibilities and the local knowledge.”

RELATIONSHIP TIPS
It also helps for the two sides collaborating to respect each other and enjoy working together. “There should be a match,” Shtruzman says. “As you know, in love and business, a match can come from different directions. If it’s a good match with good chemistry and we share the same vision, it will work. I wouldn’t say [you need the same] sensibilities. Actually, many times the vision is based on different sensibilities, especially if you want to develop a show that will work locally and also globally. So the sensibilities can be different—in fact, it’s pretty exciting to have different sensibilities in the same process. If we share the vision of creating a big, interesting, international show, and if there’s good chemistry between the parties, that’s the ground for co-development. When you’re co-developing, one plus one equals more than two. That’s the reason to co-develop.”

Armoza keeps three criteria in mind when determining who to partner with. “The first is whether or not it will bring about a new result, something that will stand out from the competition in the market or that will provide for an untapped need,” he says. In the case of The Running Show with Sohu, for example, “Partnering with the largest streaming platform in China, in particular on an original non-scripted show, was far from the norm. Yet we saw the potential to bring about fresh and cost-effective content and to utilize the as-yet untapped potential in China.”

A view towards “long-term collaboration” is also essential: “Ideally, the impact of the initial partnership will lead to other joint commercial prospects,” Armoza says.

Lastly, and most important, Armoza notes, is the need for “shared goals and values. While this may often seem to be the case at a superficial glance, an in-depth understanding of the true goals and values of a potential partner can highlight differences that can challenge a collaboration, despite the best intentions. It is only when your aims truly align that you find a prosperous and long-term partnership.”

Telefe’s Borensztein looks for “producers with great track records and strong distribution arms” that have complementary approaches to creating, financing, producing and revenue-sharing.

MATCH-MAKING
CJ E&M’s Hwang, when asked what he looks for in potential partners, lists “creativity, experience [and a] commercial and collaborative mindset…. Everyone is looking for something new, and co-development ideas can provide something new. However, making a show that travels well is not something everyone can manage. We call this the ‘global competency,’ and this is the greatest benefit that CJ E&M can obtain. Korea has so many talented people. We can make fast, effective, original, fresh shows, and we are looking for more opportunities.”

What benefited the CJ E&M and Endemol Shine partnership was the fact that the companies had worked together on the Korean adaptation of MasterChef. “We already had a relationship with them and were talking to them every day and it wasn’t us forcing them to the altar, so to speak!” Perrin quips.

Speaking more broadly on what she looks for in partnerships, Perrin notes, “Development never works unless both sides respect each other and both sides think they are creatively akin and talking the same language. Those fundamentals are where you start from. And then it’s thinking hard about the personalities that are in the room [during development meetings].”

NEW ALLIANCES
Following the Korean experience, Perrin is exploring other co-development opportunities. “I’m looking at Scandinavia. We’ve got lots of good producers in Scandinavia. I feel like it’s a territory that can launch international formats and I’d like to explore a co-development deal with a broadcaster there. It’s something I’ve started taking baby steps toward.”

ITV Studios’ Beale is also looking at potential partnerships with European broadcasters. “It’s a key trend we’re seeing where the broadcasters want to find a new format, they can’t find the one they’re looking for, so are keen to develop their own. We’re looking for new windows.”

Ultimately, Beale says, these deals are as much about relationship building as they are about creating new format ideas. “It’s a relationship thing,” he says. “Development and creation of IP and ownership of IP are very emotive things, especially for the creators. You want to be in partnership with somebody you know you can trust, you know you can have open conversations with, otherwise the development process is not going to work. Going back to Reshet, that is one of the great things we have with them—a very open dialogue. If we think an idea is bad or they think an idea is bad, then we tell each other. You can’t waste time pottering along developing stuff that isn’t going to work for you.”

Pictured: Armoza Formats’ The Final Cut-Down.