Wayne Garvie

As managing director of content and production at BBC Worldwide, Wayne Garvie is responsible for securing the best possible programming, whether by investing in independent production companies or overseeing BBC Worldwide’s production activity. The company has wholly owned studios in New York, Paris and Mumbai; joint-venture production outfits in Sydney, Toronto and Berlin; and local partnerships in Russia, Brazil and Argentina. All this production prowess is dedicated to finding good ideas for shows and adapting them properly to the tastes of local markets.

TV REAL: What has given the Dancing with the Stars format its longevity and such success?
GARVIE: First of all, it’s clearly a formula that works: it’s a simple format that is easily understood. Second, it’s a feel-good show. It was the first show that said, You know what? We’ve forgotten how much people really like to dance. I think everyone loves to dance!

It’s a show in which people are striving to be better at what they do, which is very important. Then of course it’s got the element of reality—the backstage stories, the celebrity part of it—mixed with traditional entertainment. That’s why it works.

It’s been licensed to more than 30 countries and we’ve recently done deals with Albania and Greece. And the thing about Dancing, it’s not a cheap show to do. This is one show that if you are going to do it you’ve got to do it properly, and it will work for you. You really have to have the highest production standards. It shines in any network’s portfolio of programs because it’s live and it’s got the highest production standards.

TV REAL: I’m hearing that there are two main types of formats that are doing well right now: either prime-time event-TV productions that will yield a large audience, or smaller niche shows that can be placed anywhere in the schedule.
GARVIE: I think you are right. First of all, every broadcaster wants that must-see live show, which Dancing clearly is. This is not a show that you are going to record to watch later on your TiVo. This is a show that you have to watch tonight because tomorrow you are going to talk about it with your friends. That carries a higher premium for advertisers.

The second thing broadcasters want is good content in the rest of the schedule at a lower price. This isn’t one of our shows, but Come Dine with Me, which is a British format that has worked very well in Britain and around the world, is a perfect example. It’s a show that has a very good format, it’s very original and it can be executed at a lower price. The one we’ve got in our portfolio is What Not to Wear; it’s on in the U.S., Russia and Italy. These are what we in Britain would call factual-entertainment pieces that can be made in volume and at a lower cost.
There is a third format and it’s a classic entertainment format: quizzes and game shows, which are always there and are always produced in volume.

And a fourth kind is scripted formats. We are finding now that there is a big appetite around the world for scripted formats, and we’ve seen this with telenovelas. We’re finding a lot of interest in our scripted shows, of which the best example is The Office. It is in production in Israel, France, Canada, Chile, Russia and of course the U.S. version with Steve Carell, which is a fantastic piece of television.

TV REAL: What is the key to tailoring a format to different territories? Is Dancing easier to tailor because it is so straightforward and you know exactly what it is than perhaps a different format?
GARVIE: Doing this job for the last three years, I have come up with a very simple motto, which is, in Britain we have the very best television in the world, and in Israel they have the very best television in the world, and in Poland they have the best television in the world. And you know what? We are all right. Every country believes their television is the best in the world. And if you are going to be successful in the international formats business you have to understand the nuances, and often it’s just very subtle nuances of how you can take a format and make it work in a different territory.

If you look at Dancing, there is not really much difference between the U.S. version, the U.K. version, the Polish version and the Australian version. They are all just slightly nuanced. The biggest difference is probably India because music and dance in India are very different from the ballroom dancing that you see in other countries.

I think it is quite interesting that some formats work in some territories and others don’t work. We have a U.K. show called Baby Borrowers, which has played in Germany,  the Netherlands, Belgium and India. It started in the U.K. when the company Love Productions was thinking about doing an interesting television take on teenage pregnancy. Since teenage pregnancy isn’t an issue in India, our team in India adapted the format to the cultural sensibilities and tastes of the Indian market. They used celebrity couples who are either married or engaged but without children, instead of teenage couples, and it worked really well. I think it was the number-two-rated show in its time slot and got audiences of around 49 million people.

If you have an idea for a show you have to be aware of the nuances. And one of the reasons we like to have production outfits in different territories is that they are specialists in their market. If you give a format to our Indian production team, they’ll look at it, and they’ll say, This doesn’t work, but if we did this to it, we think it would.

TV REAL: This leads to my next question: your production companies in various territories. Why was it important to have one in Germany?
GARVIE: We had been looking at Germany for a couple of years, and we talked to various people. We couldn’t find the right sort of fit. When you set up a company, you have to find the right people who share your values and your vision and we couldn’t find the right person, although there was someone I really liked, a guy called Stefan Oelze who had set up Granada’s business in Germany. But Stefan then left Granada and went to work for ALL3MEDIA, and I was thinking, Damn, I wish I had Stefan! And then we were approached by ALL3MEDIA, who said, “Look, Stefan likes you guys, you like Stefan, we’ve got a company in Germany, what if we made this a joint venture?” And we thought that was really exciting. We like to partner with other people; that’s something we think we are quite good at and we wanted to work with Stefan, so it was a brilliant moment for us. Together with ALL3MEDIA we formed Tower Productions, one of the largest production companies in Germany and it’s run by Germans who understand the market.

TV REAL: Are you looking to expand in other territories as well?
GARVIE: We’ve got a number of companies and the next stage is making sure that they survive and become the leading players in their individual markets. So now we are just looking for the right opportunities. Many companies have already been bought and sold internationally, particularly in the more developed European markets. But if the right thing came along with the right people and we thought the market was a priority for us, yes, we would be interested.