Matt Forde Talks Global Production Expansion Plans

On the heels of his recent promotion to president of global production at BBC Studios, Matt Forde opened the TV Formats Festival today with a keynote conversation about scaling the powerhouse’s remakes business across entertainment and scripted.

Earlier this month, Zai Bennett, CEO and chief creative officer of BBC Studios Productions, unveiled a new structure putting Forde in charge of all international production. Forde weighed in on the new structure, opportunities in reality, traction in scripted formats and more in a session you can view here.

The new structure, Forde said, “does make everything simpler. We have a big scripted division as a vertical; we have a big consolidated unscripted business now. And then we have global production, which is a true multi-genre business that goes across them. It makes it much simpler to look at the world. Everything ex-U.K. is now global production, and we will deliver in different genres, even within unscripted. In addition to our day-to-day, Saturday night, shiny floor gaming and quiz that we do, we’re now pushing into reality with shows like The Honesty Box. And we’ve seen a lot of success with scripted shows. We’ve proven that we can deliver these great shows to local audiences. Is there more to do? This is our opportunity to continue to grow across more territories and to grow deeper into the individual genres and branch out to be true studios to local audiences.”

The restructuring comes on the heels of the acquisitions of STV in the Nordics, Brutal Media in Spain and Werner Film Productions in Australia. “In all of those markets, we’ve seen really interesting progress,” he said, referencing production of Our Dementia Choir, Uncanny and Nation’s Dumbest in Sweden; Brutal adapting BBC Studios formats in Spain; and Werner making versions of The Office and Ghosts in Australia.

Addressing risk aversion, Forde said there’s an appetite for returning IP as well as break-out new concepts, and noted that even reboots need to be worked to stay current; for example, FOX has resurrected the Weakest Link brand in the U.S., this time with celebrities.

“It was a creative endeavor to think about what Weakest Link is today. It’s about re-imagining shows. The older formats are really important, but you have got to think about how you bring them back in a way that is fresh and exciting.”

Meanwhile, the company’s recent traction in Germany and France has proven that commissioners will still take bets on strong ideas like The 1% Club.

“They have a confidence around the new as much as they do the old. At the end of the day, the idea has to be brilliant. The execution of the idea has to be brilliant. If you can persuade people that you can deliver those two things—I’m not seeing too much risk aversion, honestly. I think that format and IP, re-imagining old formats, they’re all part of the market at the moment.”

The conversation then moved to franchise management as Forde discussed BBC Studios’ approach for keeping behemoths like Dancing with the Stars and Bake Off engaging season after season. “This is one of the areas where I’m the proudest of our teams,” Forde said. “We have creative exchanges every year on every major brand. We’ve now started doing them for The 1% Club. The learnings you get from each other’s experiences ensure that you’re able to keep these brands extraordinarily fresh and relevant.”

Beyond the creative exchanges, franchise-building is paramount, be it a gaming app, like the one for The 1% Club; or live events, such as those under the Dancing with the Stars brand.

Forde went on to talk about BBC Studios’ strengths in scripted formats. The key to successful format adaptations, he said, is in keeping the local audience top of mind.

“What I love about Ghosts is that we are rewriting all the scripts. The scripts are completely new. Apart from the set-up episode, which you’ve got to have, you’re into new territory quite quickly. That’s inspiring for writers who work in France or Germany, [and] for actors and actresses who work in those countries. Of course, it naturally resonates more deeply with an audience. What we did with Criminal Justice in India was brilliant. There were only two seasons of the U.K. show, and we made four in India. That gives us two more series to sell around the world. If you look at the history of scripted formats from anyone, the ones where you try to stay too close to the original tend to be harder to succeed with. The ones where you trust local talent to take the IP and think about it in terms of a German audience or an Australian audience seem to do best.”

I then spoke to Forde about co-development partnerships in territories where BBC Studios doesn’t have an on-the-ground presence. “How do you take risk in the right way? Korea and Japan are quite comfortable taking risks, but they’re even more comfortable taking it with us, leveraging the heritage and experience of U.K. format-makers as well as Japanese or Korean. For us, it’s interesting talking to people in the Nordics, a digital-first set of nations for a long time. They’ve really been thinking about development in those terms since about 2012. We are interested in those sorts of partnerships because we can learn from them too. We may have a good idea, but when they think about digital-first, they’ve actually got more experience than we have sometimes. We’re very fortunate to work with British ideas, and the U.K. market is still probably the best in terms of the track record of new ideas coming to the market. But with the right partners and typically people we’ve worked with before, we are interested in continuing to do that. It’s a very collaborative process. There’s a sense of joint investment, which has a power.”

On his priorities for the year ahead, Forde said he’s most excited about “having a global network. We have a development exchange at least once a year with all of the people from all of different countries. You see an idea that someone was excited about in Norway suddenly catching fire with the development team in America or something like that. It’s extremely motivating for everyone. If you’re working in Denmark on your own, suddenly you’re in a team of 12 or 13 other people who are as excited about what you’re doing as you are. It’s very fun and motivating for people.”

Expanding the geographical footprint is also on Forde’s agenda. “We’re big, but we could be bigger. There are other markets that are of interest. We will look at Benelux, for example. We may well look at Italy. We’re certainly interested in things in the Far East. And maybe there are markets in Latin America we might look at. I don’t think we’re going to get into 25 countries or anything like that, but we think there’s more to do in terms of expanding our network.”

Forde also sees plenty of additional opportunity in the scripted arena. “The conversations that I have with Werner and Brutal about what we could do beyond what we’re doing are exciting. We will continue to pick up formats, but there’s interesting IP that we could get access to out of any one of those markets, with fantastic writers of either original IP in terms of books that we can work with or just fantastic talent locally who are coming up with original ideas.”

Forde also highlighted the gains in BBC Studios’ slate of reality and social experiment formats, including Ladies of London for Bravo, Outlast on Netflix and The Honesty Box for Channel 4.

“First and foremost, we do want to look after our core brands: Dancing with the Stars, The 1% Club, Bake Off, Weakest Link, Top Gear. We mustn’t forget what really makes us what we are, but I think there are a number of different opportunities outside of that that we’re excited about over the next 12 months.”