TV Formats: 2016 Year in Review

Kristin Brzoznowski recaps highlights from last year’s formats market, which still saw plenty of action even though it didn’t bring about the next globe-busting entertainment phenomenon.

Notably, a flurry of partnerships, co-production deals and innovative development pacts kept things interesting for producers, broadcasters and distributors.

NBCUniversal International Formats and MBC Korea tied up to co-develop and produce original formats for Korean and international audiences. NBCUniversal International Studios, meanwhile, signed a first-look partnership deal with the French production company Terminal 9 Studios to develop entertainment and factual-entertainment formats. Canada’s CBC brought back its Format Incubator initiative, this time in partnership with Warner Bros. International Television Production. And NRK began working with RTÉ to offer funding for an “impactful” concept that can be made for both the Norwegian and Irish marketplaces.

Format behemoth FremantleMedia entered into a two-year co-development partnership with Argentina’s Telefe to create and develop entertainment/non-scripted formats for the Argentine and wider Latin American market. Also looking to LatAm, Keshet International (KI) struck up a relationship with Mexico’s Televisa that will see four scripted formats getting remade with Spanish-language adaptations over the next couple of years.

A number of format players looked to Asia for partnerships that could yield the next big international hit. Endemol Shine Group and CJ E&M have partnered up to create original formats and series for the Korean and international markets. Simon Cowell’s Syco Entertainment and Star China’s Canxing Production inked a three-year development deal. Talpa entered into a joint venture with the Chinese media company Zhejiang Tangde, part of which covers the rights to produce and broadcast seasons five through eight of The Voice of China.

Dealings in the Chinese market continued to get tougher, though, as the country’s State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television (SAPPRFT) placed new restrictions on the imports of foreign formats in a bid to encourage local creativity. “The reliance on imported program formats has been squeezing out the creative incentive of domestic producers and broadcasters,” SAPPRFT argued.

Nevertheless, there was still plenty of activity in China and across AsiaPac at large. ITV Studios Global Entertainment (ITVS GE) clinched a scripted format deal with Huace Film & TV in China. The partnership will see Huace produce a Chinese version of an existing ITV Studios scripted format and sell the finished product across Asia. Distribution in the rest of the world will be handled by ITVS GE. Shanghai Media Group and Fuji Television jointly commissioned Operation Love, a Chinese-language version of a Japanese drama. There are Thai remakes planned for the Top Chef and The Real Housewives franchises, while Dragons’ Den will see its first Southeast Asian version, thanks to an order from VTV in Vietnam. Korea’s tvN commissioned a local version of The Good Wife, marking the first time a U.S. series is being remade in the country.

Asia has also been a reliable exporter of format concepts, with 2016 seeing a number of shows from the region being adapted on foreign shores. GMA Worldwide licensed some of its hit Filipino dramas for remakes, including selling a pair of scripted formats into Mexico. Nippon TV placed the Japanese drama Mother with MF Yapim and MEDYAPIM for the Turkish market; Global Agency is selling the finished tape. The U.S., meanwhile, has been riding the Korean wave: ABC recently gave a straight-to-series order to the thriller Somewhere Between, a murder mystery based on a Korean format, while NBC is bringing back the reality-travel show Better Late Than Never, adapted from the South Korean series Grandpas Over Flowers.

Indeed, the U.S. continued to embrace more format imports. Starz, for example, signed up for an American adaptation of the British comedy hit Peep Show. FOX ordered the new Gordon Ramsay series The F Word, based on the U.K. show of the same name. Electus is working with Queen Latifah and Shakim Compere’s Flavor Unit Entertainment and Principato-Young Entertainment to adapt the hit Singaporean series The Kitchen Musical for the U.S. market. USA Network and sister studio Universal Cable Productions brought an American adaptation of the Norwegian crime thriller Eyewitness (Øyevitne) to the U.S.

Nordic Noir and Scandi thrillers have proven ripe for remakes globally. Among the most successful of the scripted Scandinavian exports is The Bridge, which has now scored a deal for a Russian treatment. Also, the hit Norwegian teen drama Shame is being remade for American and Canadian audiences by Simon Fuller’s XIX Entertainment.

With the appetite for drama still at a high all over the globe, it’s no wonder that 2016 was a banner year for scripted formats. A number of Turkish dramas are now being remade in markets outside their home country, including The End, which landed an adaptation in Spain, among other countries. Israel continued to be a hotbed for dramas. KI’s The A Word saw a successful remake air in the U.K. and the U.S. and is now headed to Greece with a local treatment. Prisoners of War, which is the basis for the Showtime hit Homeland, has an Indian version, via a deal between KI and Star Plus.

Outside of scripted formats, all the usual entertainment genres persisted in their popularity—new talent competitions were launched, dating series got recommissioned, game shows returned with slight tweaks in their concepts. Factual entertainment saw a nice boost in demand, as did social-experiment formats. An example of the latter is the continued success of Married at First Sight. Red Arrow International has since added to its catalog two new social experiments: Kiss Bang Love and Look Me in the Eye. A number of distributors, among them A+E Networks and Armoza Formats, have tapped into this trend, adding new social-experiment formats to their slates.

For the most part, it’s the tried-and-tested concepts that are still selling best—but there is innovation happening around these ideas. For example, The Stream, sold by Nordic World, taps into the power of the internet and social media to identify the next big music superstar. (NBC is planning to bring the show to American audiences.) Keshet Studios and BuzzFeed Motion Pictures are working together on a new TV and digital venture surrounding the game show Touch. Armoza Formats entered into a new co-development deal with FILM.UA Group for virtual- and augmented-reality projects. Meanwhile, FremantleMedia’s newly developed entertainment format Lost in Time makes use of Interactive Mixed Reality on both TV and mobile devices.

Be sure to sign up for your free subscription to TV Formats Weekly and visit TVFormats.ws to catch all the latest developments in 2017 in the world of formats.