{"id":10245,"date":"2024-01-22T09:43:57","date_gmt":"2024-01-22T14:43:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/mettlemouses-sarah-tyekiff\/"},"modified":"2024-01-23T14:26:55","modified_gmt":"2024-01-23T19:26:55","slug":"mettlemouses-sarah-tyekiff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/mettlemouses-sarah-tyekiff\/","title":{"rendered":"Mettlemouse\u2019s Sarah Tyekiff"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This past summer, BBC Studios made an investment in Mettlemouse Entertainment, the new unscripted formats indie set up by Sarah Tyekiff. As the former head of unscripted at Lime Pictures, Tyekiff ran the U.K. and U.S. slate and has maintained and refreshed a slew of long-running brands, including <em>TOWIE<\/em>,\u00a0<em>Geordie Shore<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0<em>Celebs Go Dating<\/em>. She has developed and produced a number of new formats, including\u00a0<em>Dance Monsters<\/em>,\u00a0<em>Stand Up and Deliver<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0<em>Who Do You Believe?<\/em>\u00a0Before Lime, she was an executive producer at ITV, working across brands such as\u00a0<em>Hell\u2019s Kitchen<\/em>\u00a0and the relaunch of\u00a0<em>Saturday Night Takeaway<\/em>\u00a0and helped to grow<em>\u00a0I\u2019m a Celebrity\u2026Get Me Out of Here!<\/em>\u00a0Tyekiff talks to\u00a0<em>TV Formats Weekly\u00a0<\/em>about bringing her expertise in the entertainment business to the new Mettlemouse venture and what the support of BBC Studios means for the company.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/newsletters.worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/img\/2024-01-19-SarahTyekiff-Mettlemouse-124.jpg\" alt=\"***Image***\" width=\"183\" height=\"214\" \/><strong>TV FORMATS:\u00a0<\/strong>What led to the creation of Mettlemouse?<br \/>\n<strong>TYEKIFF:\u00a0<\/strong>Throughout my career, I\u2019ve had the pleasure of working on some of the biggest entertainment shows within some hugely successful companies. After 20 years of working in the unscripted television business, it felt like the right time to take those positive learnings, forge my own path and shape something from the start.<\/p>\n<p><strong>TV FORMATS:<\/strong>\u00a0What did you learn from your time at Lime Pictures\u2014and having worked on some major entertainment brands\u2014that you\u2019ve brought with you to Mettlemouse?<br \/>\n<strong>TYEKIFF:\u00a0<\/strong>Working at such a successful production company that spans so many genres allowed me to really lean into the broader workings of an independent production company. I had the chance to work alongside two incredible managing directors, Kate Little and Claire Poyser, who taught me a lot from a commercial point of view as well as focusing on the U.S. market. Selling and producing shows in the U.S. alongside All3Media America was invaluable and made me appreciate a great idea is one thing, but how it\u2019s executed is crucial depending on which market you\u2019re making it for.<\/p>\n<p><strong>TV FORMATS:\u00a0<\/strong>What types of formats will Mettlemouse be bringing to the international landscape?<br \/>\n<strong>TYEKIFF:\u00a0<\/strong>We have three main focuses over the first 18 months that bring all our strengths together as a team: bold and original factual entertainment and entertainment reality formats, big studio entertainment shows and celebrity-led docuseries. We\u2019re focused on the U.K. and U.S. markets initially and, in particular, how we can hub those formats to make them attractive to both markets.<\/p>\n<p><strong>TV FORMATS:\u00a0<\/strong>How did the BBC Studios investment come about? And what does this bring to the company overall?<br \/>\n<strong>TYEKIFF: I<\/strong>t was key for me starting up that the investor was someone that would really fit with the business plan, ambition and scale of shows we want to produce. Right from the offset BBC Studios were able to offer all of those things. With operations in every major market and with a very current ambition for expansion, partnering up felt like a very exciting proposition.<\/p>\n<p><strong>TV FORMATS:\u00a0<\/strong>What\u2019s working best in the entertainment\/format marketplace today?<br \/>\n<strong>TYEKIFF:\u00a0<\/strong>Reality gameplay and strategy is having its moment right now.<em>\u00a0The Traitors<\/em>\u00a0has been a huge success here in the U.K.\u00a0<em>Survivor\u00a0<\/em>is back.\u00a0<em>Surviving Paradise<\/em>\u00a0has taken some traditional reality tropes and added an exciting level of gameplay to create something new, and\u00a0<em>Destination X<\/em>\u00a0is lined up to join that list. It\u2019s great for Mettlemouse, as we\u2019ve had success with all these types of formats in the past, so we are well-placed to create the next big hit in this area.<\/p>\n<p><strong>TV FORMATS:\u00a0<\/strong>How risk-averse are U.K. broadcasters at the moment with regard to entertainment commissioning? How about for the rest of the international market?<br \/>\n<strong>TYEKIFF:\u00a0<\/strong>It\u2019s fair to say there has been a lot of conversation this year about the state of the unscripted market. However, there are opportunities out there and the positive feedback we\u2019re currently getting is that, due to the huge competition for eyeballs, buyers are definitely looking for more original and noisy ideas that can grab viewers\u2019 attention.<\/p>\n<p>As creatives, you have to remain positive and keep developing and pitching because someone has to win that slot. Currently, the international market feels slightly more robust than the U.K. market; with commercial revenue down here, that impacts the buying power of some of the major U.K. networks.<\/p>\n<p><strong>TV FORMATS:\u00a0<\/strong>Where do you see the greatest opportunities in the format landscape as you look ahead?<br \/>\n<strong>TYEKIFF:\u00a0<\/strong>It\u2019s clear that there is a real push for the 9 p.m. slot on linear channels in the U.K. How do we target a broad audience mid-week? We have factual through to reality departments all asking for something groundbreaking and big in that slot. For the streamers, it\u2019s actually the same kind of content but formatted in a way that works for how they want to deliver it to their audiences.<\/p>\n<p>No one can predict what the viewers will flock to\u2014we saw that with\u00a0<em>The Traitors<\/em>\u2014but I do think they want to be excited and engaged, and that comes from commissioning new shows rather than repurposing old successes. And doing that takes bravery because inevitably some won\u2019t work. But you\u2019re never going to find the next big hit without being brave.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The CEO and founder on bringing her expertise to the new Mettlemouse Entertainment venture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":350,"featured_media":10246,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,69],"tags":[3185,3186],"class_list":["post-10245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-interviews","category-top-stories","tag-mettlemouse-entertainment","tag-sarah-tyekiff","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Mettlemouse\u2019s Sarah Tyekiff - TVFORMATS<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/mettlemouses-sarah-tyekiff\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mettlemouse\u2019s Sarah Tyekiff - 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