Mike Beale & Lisa Perrin on Nurturing Hits at ITV Studios

ITV Studios’ Lisa Perrin and Mike Beale joined the TV Formats Festival today to discuss group-wide creative collaboration, scouting for new ideas and managing format megahits.

You can watch the keynote conversation with Mike Beale, managing director of the global creative network, and Lisa Perrin, managing director of international production, here.

The conversation began with a look at the ITV Studios structure and how Beale and Perrin collaborate to further scale the company’s format business. “The creative network is across non-scripted development for the entire group—U.K., U.S. and the international group,” Beale said. “We’re tracking everything that’s coming through various stages of development with broadcasters or streamers or within the group itself. Over the last two or three years, we’ve seen the growth of collaboration between labels, both in the development and production of ideas going forward.”

Perrin pointed to the deep well of talent across ITV Studios’ production footprint, noting, “Mike and I work closely on the strategy about how and why and where we roll out formats first and where the best places are to do it. We’re joined up not only in how formats are rolled up but the deal-making, where potentially to pitch them first—that collaboration is key.”

That collaborative spirit includes bringing the labels together as often as possible, Beale said. “If one of the international labels can’t sell an idea or it doesn’t fit their territory this year, this month, whatever it might be, the others can put up their hands and pick it. We’ve got two or three new formats coming that have come from one territory that are being produced in another first. That’s happening more often, and I think we’re well connected that we can make it happen easily and seamlessly.”

Perrin added, “I don’t think you can underestimate how interconnected the ITV companies are. It is a very strong collaborative, creative feeling between the MDs. That’s part of the strength of being part of ITV. Not all studios have that. It’s a connective tissue between production and creative networks. It’s really important.”

On what she looks for when identifying properties that could easily travel from one territory to another, Perrin listed several qualities. “We’re very lucky to be part of a network—if something’s being launched by ITV, we know people are going to be looking at it. That automatically gets it to the top of the pile. There are certain territories that you know people will look at. The Traitors came from the Netherlands. That’s a territory people look to for creativity. But also, it’s just a little bit of zeitgeist.”

On ensuring successful adaptations, Beale discussed the crucial role of flying producers. “They are the brand guardians of our key titles—our platinum shows: Love Island, The Voice, I’m a Celebrity, etc. They’re there to make sure that those shows are followed. We held a Love Island exchange last year. We held a Voice exchange. We’re bringing all the producers and broadcasters together to share their experience. What have they done to move the show on? We’re constantly evaluating those shows and moving them on. That’s done by what we call international executive producers. They have a brilliant balance of knowledge about the show, a brilliant working capacity in the number of shows they’re able to support, and they get to know the producers and broadcasters in each territory well and become trusted quickly. It’s not just about sitting there and saying, No, you can’t have green lights, you’ve got to have blue lights. It’s about understanding why that question might be asked. And then working with the producer and the broadcasters to sort it out. They’re also acting more and more now around sales. They’re working very closely with our sales teams and our production labels to help provide solutions. ITV Studios Netherlands runs a Love Island hub out of Gran Canaria. The international exec producers are talking to our third-party buyers and steering them toward that. Not just because it’s more revenue for us. There’s a knowledge base there of how to make that show. It speeds things up for them, makes it more reasonable and gives them an environment that’s used to making that show.”

The conversation moved to format tweaks season to season, without messing with what made the show a hit to begin with. “The tinkering isn’t too extreme,” Perrin said. “When you make massive, wild format changes, the viewers don’t like it. They like it to feel familiar, but there’s just enough newness to feel fresh and interesting. That could be coaches, little tweaks around the edges. People don’t want big changes. One of the lovely feelings about The Voice is [that] you know it’s going to be a warm bath. It feels familiar and people love that. The same with Love Island, too. We’ve tweaked that a lot, but still at the heart, it’s about love and people finding love.”

Beale then weighed in on spin-offs, highlighting the numerous extensions to The Voice and Love Island, among others, as the conversation moved to managing formats as franchises. Beale referenced Zoo 55, ITV Studios’ digital business that launched a Roblox game for Hell’s Kitchen. “It’s a life beyond the first primary television screen. It broadens that audience. If they’re a fan, they want to touch base with these shows wherever they can.”

On the potential to reboot older shows from the ITV Studios library, Perrin referenced the successful relaunch of Bullseye but added, “There’s still an appetite for new. Everybody’s saying people are risk-averse. Yes, people do have an appetite for taking something new. We’re in a really privileged position that we have got new formats coming through.”

Beale added, “It’s got to be an organic reboot. There’s got to be an appetite for it—maybe a broadcaster asks for something, or there’s a resonance to that title today for some other reason. It’s a shorter cut to an audience, marketing gets easier, so we’re definitely on it. It’s not our driving force; the driving force is probably new.”

On production models, Perrin said that more back-to-back productions are happening.

“I wouldn’t say it makes it cheaper, but it makes things able to be commissioned because frankly, a lot of these shows we’re talking about are incredibly expensive and we know broadcasters are challenged on their budgets. We are using remote production more and more. That’s certainly also for sustainability reasons. We’re using AI in production, and it’s certainly cutting down workload and schedule, but it’s not the magic bullet at the moment.”

AI tools are also being deployed on the development side, Beale said. “How do we make our pitch materials better? How do we envisage some of these worlds that we are creating? You can’t shoot a pilot of a massive reality show, but could you create it in an AI environment? There are definitely tools to help us do things that we couldn’t do before. I was watching a proof of concept which would have cost £100,000 to produce, but the AI can create the environment. That’s where those tools can be used.”