{"id":10983,"date":"2024-11-25T08:50:47","date_gmt":"2024-11-25T13:50:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/worldscreen.com\/"},"modified":"2024-12-16T13:01:31","modified_gmt":"2024-12-16T18:01:31","slug":"bbc-studios-matt-forde","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/bbc-studios-matt-forde\/","title":{"rendered":"BBC Studios\u2019 Matt Forde"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last September, BBC Studios restructured its formats business, creating a new global entertainment unit under Matt Forde as managing director. Bringing together three previously distinct areas\u2014entertainment and music, factual entertainment and events, and international productions and formats\u2014the global entertainment unit was formed to scale BBC Studios\u2019 already thriving formats creation and export capabilities. Forde tells TV Formats<\/em>\u00a0about the benefits of the restructure, the breakout success of\u00a0The 1% Club<\/em>\u00a0and finding innovative financing models to get shows off the ground.<\/p>\n

TV FORMATS:<\/strong>\u00a0BBC Studios restructured its format operations last year, creating the new global entertainment unit you oversee. Talk to us about this division and the benefits of the realignment.
\nFORDE:<\/strong>\u00a0We are now a true global network. All countries we operate in sit in this global network, including the U.K. We\u2019re present in 11 territories. The benefit of that is the ability to move IP around the network. We can build shows in different countries if it suits us; if we can\u2019t sell it in one place, we can sell it in another. It also means we can leverage our skills from different areas. I\u2019m interested in what we might do with live events, for example, where we have expertise in the U.K. with the likes of the Queen\u2019s funeral, King Charles III\u2019s coronation and, of course, Glastonbury, which saw over 50 million streams for content in 2023. It\u2019s also helpful to be able to move production seamlessly around the world. It\u2019s brilliant creatively that teams are talking to each other about ideas from India, South Africa, Australia, America, the U.K., France and Germany. We\u2019ve also, in the past 12 months, added Brutal Media in Spain and Werner Film Productions in Australia to our global network. It\u2019s inspiring for everyone within the network to get input and creative ideas from different areas of the world. It makes it a much stronger creative community.<\/p>\n

TV FORMATS:<\/strong>\u00a0We\u2019re hearing a lot about risk aversion in the marketplace. Are you finding that to be the case, or are broadcasters and platforms still willing to gamble on compelling new ideas?
\nFORDE:<\/strong>\u00a0We\u2019re seeing people take risks. We have an investment in the U.K. indie production company Mettlemouse Entertainment, which has just had a commission from Channel 4. You might think that Channel 4 would be risk averse because of its financial stresses, but that doesn\u2019t seem to be the case. We\u2019ve seen other new shows get commissioned. For example,\u00a0Silence is Golden<\/em>\u00a0for UKTV. There is no question to me that people are prepared to take risks. It\u2019s about everybody being smart in the system. Looking at what the cost of making that show is. Have you considered that in the context of who you\u2019re pitching to? Creative risk-taking is still there if there is a quality idea. You do see reboots, but they\u2019re not straight reboots. When we remade\u00a0Weakest Link<\/em>\u00a0in the U.S. and thought about what the tone could be, it\u2019s more friendly, it\u2019s more Jane Lynch than it is Anne Robinson. The successful reboots are done with skill.<\/p>\n

TV FORMATS:<\/strong>\u00a0Talk to us about the franchise management approach to keeping your returning brands successful year after year.
\nFORDE:<\/strong>\u00a0We spend a lot of time on it because they\u2019re so valuable in every way. They are defining as brands as well as being good business. Every year, we have creative exchanges in the U.K. All of the producers, sometimes the network executives, come to the U.K., and we have two days of sharing information about the last season. That could be new ideas and innovations, or it could be things that were difficult. We circulate all of those ideas. We have a team of four flying producers that go around the world to ensure the show is the best it can be. We have production markets where we also have a lot of expertise to call on. It is a 365-days-a-year project for\u00a0Bake Off<\/em>,\u00a0Dancing with the Stars<\/em>\u00a0and now\u00a0The 1% Club<\/em>,which has already been sold to 12 territories. We\u2019ll have our first creative exchange for that soon, which I\u2019m excited about because we have learned so much. The shows evolve. That\u2019s what\u2019s great about what we do with\u00a0Dancing with the Stars<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Bake Off<\/em>. It\u2019s not the same all the time.<\/p>\n

The same will be true for\u00a0The 1% Club<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Weakest Link<\/em>, which has been licensed in over 45 territories, returning most recently in France and Spain.<\/p>\n

TV FORMATS:<\/strong>\u00a0The 1% Club<\/em>\u00a0has been one of the fastest-selling new game shows of the last few years. Why do you think it struck such a chord?
\nFORDE:<\/strong>\u00a0When we started\u00a0Dancing with the Stars<\/em>, if you\u2019d asked us what made it special, it would be a different answer to what we give now. Fundamentally, at the core, the idea of\u00a0The 1% Club<\/em>\u00a0works, and it is brilliant. Every time we pitch just one example to people, they\u2019re like, I love this. You don\u2019t need to be good at quizzes. You need to have good lateral thinking. It\u2019s fantastic that the audience [members] are the participants. The fact that it\u2019s comedic\u2014that\u2019s a theme that you see as a trend at the moment. As you watch the show, you build relationships with the contestants. By the time you\u2019re down to the last seven or eight, you\u2019re rooting for two or three of them. It\u2019s a real prime-time event that the whole family can play along with at home, encouraging co-viewing. It has connections, relationships and an enjoyable story. The app sits alongside the show and keeps the show alive outside its broadcast. It quickly became the number one trivia\/free game app in the U.K. every Saturday night, and there have been 2.4 million downloads to date.<\/p>\n

This speaks to another thing I think is important to all of us in formats: What are you doing to keep that brand alive when you\u2019re not on air? With\u00a0Dancing with the Stars<\/em>, ticket sales of the live show have risen in America over the last two years. That speaks to something about fans and experiences. Brands must have a life outside of the linear broadcast of a show.<\/p>\n

TV FORMATS:<\/strong>\u00a0Are there significant differences in the format needs of streamers versus broadcasters?
\nFORDE:<\/strong>\u00a0There are some companies that we work with that will say, \u201cThis show doesn\u2019t work in digital, so it\u2019s a no.\u201d When I speak to Disney about\u00a0Dancing with the Stars<\/em>, they\u2019re quite thoughtful about it. This brand sits in the middle of Disney, if you like. They get to different audiences in different ways. They have the ABC audience with a bit of catch-up. They have Hulu, which is mainly catch-up. And Disney+ gets it to another sector. With FOX and Prime Video [on\u00a0The 1% Club<\/em>], there was a lot of discussion about how to do it, and it worked out well for both. They both benefited from each other\u2019s awareness. That is smart for everyone. It removes a certain amount of risk. You get to more people and can defray some cost across two platforms. Not everybody will do that model, but we\u2019ll see more. There\u2019s less buying of global rights. That is still going on. But I\u2019m enjoying the more pragmatic approach!<\/p>\n

TV FORMATS:<\/strong>\u00a0Are there particular genres in demand right now?
\nFORDE:<\/strong>\u00a0Feel-good is still a big part of it; something with warmth, connections and comedy. That lends itself to games and quizzes because you have a host who often comes from a comedy background. Jason Manford [hosts]\u00a0The Answer Run<\/em>,which is our new quiz show in the U.K.; it gave the BBC its biggest-ever daytime quiz launch for over a decade.AlsoJane Lynch for\u00a0Weakest Link\u00a0<\/em>[in the U.S.], Jim Jefferies for\u00a0The 1% Club\u00a0<\/em>[in Australia]. There seems to be a real demand for quizzes and games. There\u2019s been an uptick in the number of versions of\u00a0Weakest Link<\/em>\u00a0we\u2019re making. The other area [in demand] is social experiment and reality.<\/p>\n

TV FORMATS:<\/strong>\u00a0You worked with Nippon TV on\u00a0Koso Koso<\/em>. What opportunities do you see for format co-development internationally?
\nFORDE:<\/strong>\u00a0Creative processes are collaborative by their very nature. The Nippon TV adventure, if you like, has been brilliant. We\u2019ve benefited from their creative sensibility. It\u2019s helped us take something back into the U.K. that\u2019s got a sense of something different. If anything, we\u2019d like to make it more zany than what we\u2019ve been doing. We see opportunities in Germany, Denmark, Japan, Korea and the U.S. You\u2019ve got to work out which partners you think you\u2019ll have a fruitful relationship with.<\/p>\n

TV FORMATS:<\/strong>\u00a0What other growth areas are you prioritizing?
\nFORDE:<\/strong>\u00a0Scripted formats are proving a particularly strong area for us. We\u2019ve launched a spin-off of\u00a0Death in Para<\/em>dise<\/em>\u00a0called\u00a0Return to Paradise<\/em>\u00a0in Australia, and it\u2019s done well. It recorded a total TV reach of 1.2 million and was the highest-rating drama on launch day. With scripted formats, sometimes you follow the original script. The most successful and interesting ones are where we take the premise and reinvent it for that local market.\u00a0Ghosts<\/em>\u00a0in America is the best example. We\u2019re now doing it in Australia with\u00a0The Office<\/em>\u00a0for Prime Video. Game and quiz are going strongly. The big brands are so important. They are still alive and well. I feel very confident and passionate about where unscripted is going. It is doing a fantastic job for Kate Phillips [director of unscripted] on the BBC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The managing director of global entertainment on\u00a0risk aversion and financing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":10984,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,69],"tags":[1337,3184],"class_list":["post-10983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-interviews","category-top-stories","tag-bbc-studios","tag-matt-forde","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"\nBBC Studios\u2019 Matt Forde - 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\/bbc-studios-matt-forde\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"BBC Studios\u2019 Matt Forde - TVFORMATS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The managing director of global entertainment on\u00a0risk aversion and financing.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/bbc-studios-matt-forde\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"TVFORMATS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-11-25T13:50:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-12-16T18:01:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2024\/11\/Matt-Ford-BBC-Studios.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"360\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mansha Daswani\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mansha Daswani\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"8 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/bbc-studios-matt-forde\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/bbc-studios-matt-forde\/\",\"name\":\"BBC Studios\u2019 Matt Forde - TVFORMATS\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2024-11-25T13:50:47+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-12-16T18:01:31+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/bbc-studios-matt-forde\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/bbc-studios-matt-forde\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/bbc-studios-matt-forde\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"BBC Studios\u2019 Matt Forde\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/\",\"name\":\"TVFORMATS\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad\",\"name\":\"Mansha Daswani\",\"description\":\"Mansha Daswani is the editor-in-chief and associate publisher of World Screen. 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