Fremantle’s Rob Clark on Navigating the Current Format Landscape

As productions have been impacted across nearly all genres (and in nearly all markets) in recent months, studio entertainment shows have certainly been among the trickiest to navigate amid new production measures. For Fremantle, the coronavirus pandemic has led to some carefully executed iterations for a number of its key productions, including megahit entertainment franchises such as Idols, Got Talent and The X Factor. Sharing knowledge across its global network of producers, the company has continued to deliver broadcasters and audiences the type of feel-good, escapist entertainment that the marketplace is absolutely craving at the moment. Rob Clark, Fremantle’s director of global entertainment, shares his view on navigating the current format landscape and what’s to come.

TV FORMATS: How were Fremantle’s key format productions impacted by global production shutdowns, and what were some of the innovative ways that productions were able to move forward?
CLARK: Everything was affected; absolutely no show was unaffected. It either affected the creative, or physically being able to produce the show and bring people together.

Initially, [the virus took hold] in Southern Europe. So, we did the finale of the Italian version of Got Talent and it was the first of the talent shows we did without an audience. We then went on to do the German version of Idols, Norway’s Idols and X Factor in Denmark without an audience—and all successfully! With each iteration, we learned how to do it. In many ways, we went back to more like the original way of shooting these shows, which was to have the cameras pointed right at the center of the stage. Whereas [generally], we use the emotion of the audience, either cheering or clapping or crying or smiling—which you will notice there’s an awful lot of in a Fremantle show. We went back to shooting what we used to shoot, which was the action on the stage. It worked very well. And then we learned how to shoot with fewer people, locked-off cameras, electronically-controlled cameras.

What I’m most proud of is that while we made some mistakes, we never made them again. We were able to pass around our global network all of the iterations and remedies that we had found in every single territory. It was really quite remarkable. We’re still being affected now. We’re shooting game shows without audiences. We produced a brochure in March of 50 studio shows that don’t need audiences, knowing full-well that the next stage of this would be, OK you can get back into production, but you’re not going to be able to have big audiences in the studios. We are now making Family Feud in France, Australia, Brazil, the U.K.—all of which we haven’t made for many years. We’re making Password in France. All of these “COVID-friendly” shows we’re back in business with on a global scale.

The show that had the most to lose and the most to prove, in a way, was American Idol. It’s still the biggest entertainment show in the world. They did a phenomenal job in how they managed to make that show. At that time, you were not allowed in studios in California, and we had just reached the studio stage of the show. So, they shot it all from people’s homes. They didn’t have any cameras as we would know it; they shot everything on iPhone 11s. It was passed down the wire back to central edits, rebuilt and put together by editors and producers working from home. It was a phenomenal achievement, to have gotten through all of the live shows and then to have the final actually on-air on ABC. It all paid off, as the series delivered a total multiplatform average audience of 10.1 million total viewers. We did a good job.

We haven’t let our broadcasters down, and we haven’t let our audiences down. We have managed to make the shows that we were planning to make. They may have looked slightly different, and they will continue to look slightly different, but the essence of the show is still there, and I’m glad to say they all rated rather well.

TV FORMATS: How do you see the future of Fremantle’s studio shows taking shape as productions get rolling again?
CLARK: Until there’s a vaccine or eradication of COVID-19, the production process is compromised. You have to find ways around it. We have a COVID-19 process, which is many pages of recommendations on what to do and what not to do. In each territory it’s slightly different, depending on what local regulations are. But in the U.S. and Italy, we’re in production now with a lot of shows. We’re testing people on a very regular basis. If anybody tests positive, it doesn’t shut down the production; it shuts down the bubble that they operate in. You have to stick to the area of the studio that you operate in. You have to stick to the people that you are allowed to be with. The whole point is to cut down on a) the number of people you’re in contact with and b) the areas that you have been to. It’s quite extreme, but it’s for everybody’s benefit. It is more costly, but it saves lives. We’re very strict about it.

TV FORMATS: What new developments will come in the dating space to make them more compliant with new production protocols?
CLARK: One of the production protocols is to get tested. If you get tested and then are in a bubble, you’re fine. You just have to follow procedures and make sure that once you’re tested, you are cleared and in your production or cast bubble, and that is how you stay. But you can do dating shows.

What we saw at the beginning of COVID-19 was an awful lot of “COVID shows,” which had people talking on Zoom or Webex or whatever, in their front room with children running past and the occasional appearance of their dog. At first, they were quite interesting, but people very quickly got bored with them. You saw ratings drop. People are wanting an escape from that sort of thing. They have been doing that every day with work, and every night with their social and family circles. What they didn’t want was to turn on the television and find that the same thing was on, that they were watching their own life being fed back to them. That’s not the point of television; the point is to give somebody an experience that’s beyond what they normally have.

We need to be very careful in developing things that are short-term. People see beyond that. Those shows filled a necessary void at the time when they were there, but they very quickly were replaced by having as many bells and whistles from the normal production regime that you could possibly muster. COVID-friendly formats are being developed, and that is what broadcasters are looking for, but they’re also looking for shows that give the viewer an experience of entertainment. They want scale, they want escapism.

TV FORMATS: As Fremantle is the undisputed “Home of Game Shows,” how will this genre be impacted in the year ahead?
CLARK: In the U.K. we [recently] had Epic Gameshow, which was an amalgam of a number of our games. Each show had a different, bigger ending: a bigger ending to The Price Is Right, a bigger ending to Play Your Cards Right, a bigger ending to Bullseye, all these very well-known game shows. It rated through the roof! I expected it to do well, but I was amazed at how well it had done. There’s a secret there, in its casting. We had a comedian called Alan Carr, and it was the first time he’d done this sort of series. He was just genius. It’s always about casting. You can see that with Steve Harvey [on Family Feud] or Alec Baldwin [on Match Game]. If you get the right sock on the right foot, then you’ve got a perfect fit. So, Epic Gameshow was perfectly cast, and the shows had scale. It looked blingy without being rough; it’s shiny and sparkly. There was nothing about the show that wasn’t family-friendly. You can sit there with your 5-year-old or 15-year-old or your grandma and nothing is going to be said that’s uncomfortable or embarrassing. It’s perfect for co-viewing. When you’re at home with the whole family, which at the moment most people are, there’s going to be a moment where it’s a godsend that you can all sit down together and enjoy something.

We’ve got a quiz show in the Netherlands, Ask Me Anything, on RTL 4, and it’s stripped in access [prime time]. It’s often the number one entertainment show of the night.

Rolling In It launched on ITV last weekend and has consolidated at 3.8 million viewers and rocketed for the 16-to-34s.

You should see the number of commissions that we’ve got for game shows since that period. Game shows don’t need audiences, and if they do you can get around it. For The Price Is Right, we have a smaller audience, they’re in family pods, and it works. We’re back in production with that in Portugal. Game shows are also very uplifting. They’re very easy to control as well, in terms of the cast and the people who are there, so you can test people easily and make sure that they are brought in in a way that they’re not in contact with others. The production process can be very COVID-friendly. They’re also just nice shows, good shows for the time; they’re uplifting, they’re positive, there’s nothing about them that’s downbeat. Audiences are drawn to the positivity of a game show. When you’re not feeling very well, what you want is comfort food. I always equate [game shows with comfort food].

TV FORMATS: How will broadcasters’ budgets and willingness to take risks impact the next cycle of formats being launched to the international marketplace?
CLARK: We’ve got to cut some slack for our broadcast partners because they’ve had it tough! Everyone has had a really tough year, and it’s not the year that they’re going to experiment. For 2020, they may have had some things in the can that they could put on that were new, but if they didn’t, they’re not going to have anything for the rest of the year. However, what we’ve seen is a real appetite and real desire for programs for 2021 that are original and fresh and often have scale; they’re not looking for small shows. That’s a very positive message for the industry.

TV FORMATS: What are some of the new formats that Fremantle will be focused on rolling out for the rest of 2020 and into 2021?
CLARK: The autumn slate will be some new titles, game shows, a few dating shows, a few new launches from Israel in particular. Given the circumstances of the year, I’m quite happy with the slate. For 2021, I see that [buyers] are still looking for family-friendly shows, they’re looking for in-the-field reality, because that’s been missing this year, so they’re hoping they can get back to filming out of a studio and out of the controlled environment. And everything has got to have a degree of positivity about it and humor. That’s a wise decision. Behind the health crisis is going to be a financial crisis, and that’s going to affect audiences. Audiences invariably in those times want to be entertained, they want positivity, they want good TV in the sense of not being too harsh. There will, obviously, be some counter-commissioning to that, where there are a few programs that are absolutely the reverse of that. Overall, I’m quite positive about next year. I think 2021 is going to be a good year for everyone.

TV FORMATS: How are you and your team tapping into the umbrella of Fremantle’s majority- and minority stake-owned labels for ideas that can travel as formats?
CLARK: Any new show from anywhere—no matter if it’s 25 percent-owned, 50 percent, 51 percent, wholly owned or not owned at all—all of that is fed into our global entertainment department. Out of that, we choose the shows that we think have got the best potential for international exploitation. That will depend on a number of things: the rights situation, the content, the scale, the transferability of the idea in itself, the scalability of the idea—can you make it in America and make it in a smaller territory with a much smaller budget. Also, is it returnable? What I am not interested in is somebody with a brilliant one-off stunt. It’s like, Good one, but now you’ve got to do it all over again next year.

TV FORMATS: What advantages does Fremantle’s scale bring to its format prowess?
CLARK: You could call it a criticism, but a lot of our formats are still on air from a long time ago. If you look at something like Family Feud, it’s from 1976, and it’s been commissioned again nearly all over the world. The reason that shows like that, or any of the talent shows, are still on air is that the company has scale enough to invest. It also has the stability: financial stability and stability in terms of the people [working there]. It’s a stable structure and it allows that network to function really effectively. Any new idea from anywhere is quickly monitored, checked, quality-controlled and if it’s good, then it’s passed on. That’s why we were very quick with the different iterations with COVID-19 on how to produce. The network was stronger over that period than probably at any time I can remember. Everybody wanted to find out information, whereas when you’re busy, you’re busy. This time, we were all busy in a different way. Everyone needed to know what other people were doing: had anybody done this, had anybody done that. That stability and network allow new shows to be rolled out relatively quickly, but not too quickly. It’s not about rolling out quickly, it’s about rolling out and staying out; keeping the shows on air. That’s where the value is. The value is not in having a format that sells in 20 territories in six months and only sells once. It’s about having it in 70 territories and keeping it there for 50 years. That is brought about by having a stable network, a stable financial company, a company that has got the resources and the ability to invest and to care about its formats.