:00:00. > :00:09.across the Atlantic in several days' time. That's it for me from tonight.
:00:10. > :00:24.Now on BBC News - The Bottom Line with Evan Davis.
:00:25. > :00:31.How does a show like the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire become known all
:00:32. > :00:34.around the world? This market has exploded in the last 15 years. We
:00:35. > :00:42.are going to hear all about it today. How to hit upon a winning
:00:43. > :00:48.formula. The legal wrangles. Each week, influential business leaders
:00:49. > :01:02.gather in London for the BBC programme, the Bottom Line. And you
:01:03. > :01:08.can see it as well is hear it. To talk us through the strange world of
:01:09. > :01:20.TV formats, I have three very qualified guests. Charlie Parsons
:01:21. > :01:33.created a television series Survivor. Castaway Productions
:01:34. > :01:39.controls all aspects of that franchise. Six people live on
:01:40. > :01:43.islands, they play a number of games in to survive. It's a sort of mix
:01:44. > :01:49.between documentary, live reality soap and drama. You struggled to
:01:50. > :01:56.sell it initially because it has been very successful but it was a
:01:57. > :02:03.slow start. It was a slow start. I came for a production background,
:02:04. > :02:07.I'm a producer. I had this idea for doing the show that didn't fit into
:02:08. > :02:12.any natural categories. In the end they couldn't actually sell it to
:02:13. > :02:16.the UK in the initial stages so I had to sell it internationally. The
:02:17. > :02:21.first mention of this show when I was a British TV producer making a
:02:22. > :02:28.British programme went on in Sweden, a long time ago, 1997. It was an
:02:29. > :02:33.instant hit. Then I managed to roll it out into different places around
:02:34. > :02:38.the world. You've got to have one successful demonstration market.
:02:39. > :02:42.Exactly, and this was a very ambitious show. It wasn't very cheap
:02:43. > :02:47.to make. It broke all the rules in terms of what categorise formats.
:02:48. > :02:51.Difficult to remember in the days before Big Brother. But in those
:02:52. > :02:55.days there wasn't such a thing as reality television. The kind of
:02:56. > :02:59.people who bought programmes were very specialist in doing
:03:00. > :03:04.entertainment studio shows a documentary shows or drama shows.
:03:05. > :03:07.There wasn't anybody who crossed over between all those things.
:03:08. > :03:14.Effectively that's what reality television is. Usually you would
:03:15. > :03:18.expect a show to be very good in a home market and then to go
:03:19. > :03:23.international. I desperately tried to sell it in the UK, nobody wanted
:03:24. > :03:34.to buy. Later, when it was a big success in America, it got bigger in
:03:35. > :03:43.the UK. And there were legal dispute about the format, we will talk about
:03:44. > :03:51.that later. My next guest, Louise Pedersen, is managing director of
:03:52. > :03:58.all3media international, which sells TV formats around the world. You're
:03:59. > :04:02.not a producer. No, we acquire the distribution rights and then sell
:04:03. > :04:09.them internationally to producers. Some of the shows we do, the one
:04:10. > :04:16.that speak at the moment is global books, which is a show with a family
:04:17. > :04:22.sitting in front of the television and watching television, it's not an
:04:23. > :04:29.obvious candidate for a format, but the way in which it is produced,
:04:30. > :04:39.very quickly, so the show was very relevance. Cash cab is probably our
:04:40. > :04:43.widest selling show to date. It said in the back of a cab. The taxi pulls
:04:44. > :04:48.over, picks a passenger, then lights go on and the taxi driver gives them
:04:49. > :04:52.the opportunity to answer some questions and win lots of money.
:04:53. > :04:58.This is just a pointer on the street. They get picked up by the
:04:59. > :05:06.Cash cab. And undercover Boss, which is a sort of business-related
:05:07. > :05:07.format, really, but it's about bosses from companies going
:05:08. > :05:11.undercover within their own corporation and finding out what
:05:12. > :05:16.it's like to do the day job. That's being aired on Channel 4 here and
:05:17. > :05:19.it's been really successful on CBS. Do you buy the format? You have any
:05:20. > :05:32.production on that actually makes the programme? We work with
:05:33. > :05:39.producers. They had the idea, we come along to sell the format
:05:40. > :05:42.internationally. We won't take show until it's been on air somewhere,
:05:43. > :05:46.it's important that there is something you can show
:05:47. > :05:54.internationally. And what is the skill set? Is it sporting a
:05:55. > :06:01.successful format? Was it just the logistics? Part of it is spotting
:06:02. > :06:04.one, but I'm not going to claim a huge amount of credit for that. A
:06:05. > :06:08.lot of it is relationships, understanding, who's got the right
:06:09. > :06:16.slots for this show, be able to pitch it properly, having enough
:06:17. > :06:22.understanding that you can explain to people how to make it. My third
:06:23. > :06:33.guest work for a very large broadcaster. Ricardo Pereira is
:06:34. > :06:41.director for Europe at TV Globo, based in Lisbon in Portugal. In
:06:42. > :06:48.Brazil we tend to produce 90% of programming in house, so we buy very
:06:49. > :06:56.little. Now we are showing homeland at 11 o'clock on Sunday nights over
:06:57. > :07:06.the summer. Very specific. We've been broadcasting for 14 years. The
:07:07. > :07:14.Voice Brazil. A few others. On the other hand, we sell formats. For
:07:15. > :07:28.many years we sold our telly novellas. Long form from us. --
:07:29. > :07:44.dramas. This story created for that slot, like a film, each chapter
:07:45. > :07:54.costs around ?400,000. But you can sell these things? Yes, but more and
:07:55. > :08:01.more, TV stations want to produce their own stuff, with their own
:08:02. > :08:05.people, their own actors. So we are selling scripts and supervising
:08:06. > :08:15.production in some territories. In the US and in Portugal. Formats
:08:16. > :08:20.don't have to be reality shows. Take me back to the 1980s. How did it
:08:21. > :08:27.work before this format market became the format market that we
:08:28. > :08:32.know and recognise? There was a format market, it wasn't as big as
:08:33. > :08:39.it is now. There were fully fund programmes, and that would be your
:08:40. > :08:45.primary interest as a producer. People hadn't at that stage spotted
:08:46. > :08:52.the value in those brands to be sold internationally. Gradually what
:08:53. > :08:56.happened towards the end of the 80s is that people started to look at
:08:57. > :09:03.ways of doing it, eventually creating especially for those
:09:04. > :09:12.markets. People realised there was something more entertaining than the
:09:13. > :09:19.basic question of format. -- quiz show. I remember living in London in
:09:20. > :09:28.the 80s and about one o'clock in the evening and night, God save the
:09:29. > :09:32.Queen, that was what was on the BBC. Along with the rest of
:09:33. > :09:36.globalisation, you see Starbucks on every street corner, you see Who
:09:37. > :09:43.Wants To Be A Millionaire on every channel. How do you go about out and
:09:44. > :09:50.a format? You use the word bible. I buy this Bible... You're basically
:09:51. > :09:53.told how to make the format. You're buying the expertise and how to make
:09:54. > :09:59.the show, it could be the lighting design, the sat, the title sequence.
:10:00. > :10:04.We are talking about a great big document. And access to information
:10:05. > :10:10.and personnel. We are not producing it, we are licensing it. Like you
:10:11. > :10:18.could decide to buy the franchise for fast food, they teach you how to
:10:19. > :10:23.make the handovers. -- hamburgers. Louise, take us through the typical
:10:24. > :10:29.story. It starts on the domestic market, who originated? Who then,
:10:30. > :10:37.what do they do with it? So let's take a show commissioned by ITV.
:10:38. > :10:43.It's been there for six or seven years now. The show is a physical
:10:44. > :10:49.game show, there is a glass cube and a family member goes into the glass
:10:50. > :10:55.cube and tries to win various challenges for money. Quite an
:10:56. > :11:00.expensive show to make. The scale of production is quite ambitious. It
:11:01. > :11:06.looks quite glossy. Typically, we will start talking to people about
:11:07. > :11:12.self markets just before the show goes to air to train get people
:11:13. > :11:20.excited about it. And then when the show airs we go back to everybody
:11:21. > :11:25.with the ratings information. We will then start the conversation. It
:11:26. > :11:28.is there no doubt to whom you will Phichit and where you will slot it
:11:29. > :11:32.if you are a broadcaster and beginner negotiation about how much
:11:33. > :11:37.they will pay. We will talk now about the money side of it. How do
:11:38. > :11:42.you pay? I want to purchase a quiz show, how do do this? What is the
:11:43. > :11:48.basis? It easy percentage of the Budget. If you are making it big,
:11:49. > :11:52.expensive prime-time show in the United States, the percentage that
:11:53. > :11:56.is the format C will be higher than if you are making a prime-time show
:11:57. > :12:03.in Vietnam's. Just because budgets are smaller. Isn't that stupid? Did
:12:04. > :12:11.you pay for the number of viewers it gets...? Broadcasters wouldn't be
:12:12. > :12:14.able to make it. It have to have a relevance to the cost of production
:12:15. > :12:21.in their market in terms of what they pay us. If we demanded the same
:12:22. > :12:26.fee from India as we did from the US, it is not going to happen. The
:12:27. > :12:32.price you would pay for something globally and the price for which you
:12:33. > :12:37.would sell something, is very significant price? Is this like
:12:38. > :12:44.pocket money? Again, yes. With a big show like survivor or Big Brother,
:12:45. > :12:51.the production Budget is high. -- Survivor. Whoever sells, get their
:12:52. > :12:57.part. Getting the Bible, they are teaching you to do that.
:12:58. > :13:04.(CROSSTALK). It is a recipe. The thing is, different markets have
:13:05. > :13:08.different prices they can pay. We did do Survivor in Bulgaria and the
:13:09. > :13:14.US but the Bulgarian production is obviously much tighter with budgets.
:13:15. > :13:22.It is good to sell to Bulgaria and Sebi is sold to 70 countries because
:13:23. > :13:26.television executives nowadays prefer to go to a certain purchase.
:13:27. > :13:33.I will purchase this format because it has been proven by the record
:13:34. > :13:38.instead of creating a show... The weird side effect. I don't know if
:13:39. > :13:41.you would agree but television executives are almost more cautious
:13:42. > :13:46.because of these formats. If you think of these formats, they are
:13:47. > :13:51.really competition with native ideas. The sad thing is it that
:13:52. > :13:57.there are a few ideas coming on to television. What makes a good
:13:58. > :14:02.format? I think what you are doing is creating a framework and the
:14:03. > :14:08.framework is something which can be applied in lots of places. It is a
:14:09. > :14:14.franchise model. There are building blocks to your programme which make
:14:15. > :14:18.it unique and make it possible to adapt to different territories.
:14:19. > :14:21.You're selling framework and you're selling of the expertise with those
:14:22. > :14:25.of our framework. Some domestic programmes don't have that because
:14:26. > :14:31.they are a documentary about a particular subject. My big fat gypsy
:14:32. > :14:33.wedding sold as a programme that you can't translate it because it
:14:34. > :14:36.doesn't have building blocks in that way. It tells a great story that
:14:37. > :14:43.doesn't have building blocks in that way. We have got the hang of the
:14:44. > :14:49.market now for television format. One interesting feature is that we
:14:50. > :14:53.think of the world is becoming more globalised but this is actually a
:14:54. > :15:01.very interesting case study of a market which merits that ghastly
:15:02. > :15:08.word, globalisation. It is also about localising it. The technology
:15:09. > :15:13.has made it more possible. If you look at the scheduled for all
:15:14. > :15:17.countries, prime-time, you rarely find a foreign programme. Not even
:15:18. > :15:21.an important series like CSI which is the most successful franchise.
:15:22. > :15:28.Everybody produces their own shows because it is a local thing. We are
:15:29. > :15:33.talking about... I think also the reality television brought in a
:15:34. > :15:38.thing where people want to be seen on television. Take some of yours.
:15:39. > :15:47.How might do they change? How do they adapt? Alp have changed
:15:48. > :15:55.fundamentally but with a show, it is very scalable. You can do it in New
:15:56. > :16:05.York with a yellow cab or in a motorised rickshaw in the or India.
:16:06. > :16:07.We need to move on. -- Vietnam's. This industry is about intellectual
:16:08. > :16:12.property and we know that that raises difficult questions around
:16:13. > :16:18.protecting its because I can steal it. Once you tell me what it is, I
:16:19. > :16:23.have it and I can run off with it. At this point, Charlie, we should
:16:24. > :16:27.get from you, the man in the studio with the most experienced in this
:16:28. > :16:36.department. Tell us the story of Survivor and Big Brother. When I
:16:37. > :16:40.first went out and sold Survivor in the TV market, there were two people
:16:41. > :16:44.who licensed it with a view to selling it. There were two Russian
:16:45. > :16:52.companies, one who made Big Brother and the Swedish who eventually made
:16:53. > :17:00.Survivor. A little later, and after the programme had been a success,
:17:01. > :17:06.Big Brother had sold in Holland but Survivor had not. In a very early
:17:07. > :17:13.days, possibly wouldn't do it then but we took the view then that they
:17:14. > :17:17.had stolen our intellectual property because we had licensed it to them
:17:18. > :17:22.and it was essentially a similar idea only it took place in a house,
:17:23. > :17:31.basically the same structure to the show, rather than an island. We lost
:17:32. > :17:37.that in court. We were obviously are spending a lot of money and time on
:17:38. > :17:43.it. It went up quite a long way. Who knows? You have to put it in the
:17:44. > :17:46.context of it being the beginning of reality television. If I look back,
:17:47. > :17:53.in hindsight, perhaps what I was trained to do was protect a genre
:17:54. > :17:58.rather than a programme. This was in 1999, I think. It sounded like the
:17:59. > :18:04.final judgement of the Dutch Supreme Court had a certain logic to it.
:18:05. > :18:07.They said, " Format will typically have a number of elements and it is
:18:08. > :18:12.very clear that if you only have one of those elements, it is not a copy
:18:13. > :18:19.and if you have all of them, it is a copy." In between... It was a long
:18:20. > :18:25.time ago. At that time, it was very early days of this whole thing. I
:18:26. > :18:28.would genuinely say that that eight or nine of the elements were the
:18:29. > :18:37.same but obviously, the crucial one especially for a non- TV making
:18:38. > :18:43.audience, would be that it isn't on an island so how can you say that it
:18:44. > :18:47.same. I understand that. They famously went on to make Big Brother
:18:48. > :18:51.around the world, will be one of the biggest format producers in the
:18:52. > :18:56.world. They make Big Brother with you, Ricardo, in Brazil. You found
:18:57. > :18:59.yourself getting into the case defending them because they wanted
:19:00. > :19:06.to take other people to court. This was before the first big brother.
:19:07. > :19:15.They made a company to produce it. It took a few months. I think, in
:19:16. > :19:20.the meantime, another broadcaster had a great idea where they decided
:19:21. > :19:27.to put 20 people in the house. LAUGHTER. The only difference was
:19:28. > :19:29.that instead of regular people, they had actors and actresses. They
:19:30. > :19:41.actually broadcast it and it did well. Globo suit them and won. The
:19:42. > :19:48.problem with TV formats is that in law, you can't protect an idea.
:19:49. > :19:53.Effectively, it is a set of building blocks but also an idea. Have you
:19:54. > :19:58.had problems with this? We try to head off if we get wind of someone
:19:59. > :20:00.doing it. Someone can go into production with your show without
:20:01. > :20:04.paying you and you can remedy that easily and you can say that this is
:20:05. > :20:10.based on our format so have a format E, can we, please? That can get
:20:11. > :20:13.sorted out. There are other cases where shows in the market are
:20:14. > :20:19.similar to ours and we have decided not to take it to court. That you
:20:20. > :20:23.copy as well, sometimes? We don't because we aren't producers, we just
:20:24. > :20:27.sell. We do come across shows the vows which look similar to something
:20:28. > :20:31.else. You have a discussion that says we can't get away with it? We
:20:32. > :20:35.have the discussion that says, what makes it different? Can you talk
:20:36. > :20:39.through the creative process that gets us to your idea that helps us
:20:40. > :20:46.to pitch the show and to defend the show against allegations of it being
:20:47. > :20:49.a rip-off. I want to get at the idea of how close something has to be to
:20:50. > :20:53.be a rip-off and also to build on the success of something. If you
:20:54. > :20:57.take Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and I can remember sitting in a
:20:58. > :21:03.hotel with lots of international stations in another country and
:21:04. > :21:07.flipping through anything about five different versions with the same
:21:08. > :21:12.diamond shaped graphic with the answer options and the same music.
:21:13. > :21:16.If I make a quiz show with increasing gradient in the prizes as
:21:17. > :21:21.you go through and a single contestant, is that a rip-off of Who
:21:22. > :21:25.Wants To Be A Millionaire? It was tightly branded. It was a big
:21:26. > :21:32.success in controlling that which they did very carefully. It was a
:21:33. > :21:44.huge success. It was well worth it. (CROSSTALK). I have the Millionaire
:21:45. > :21:49.show in my territory. You would rather buy the success...
:21:50. > :22:01.One guy, three gas, in a radio studio. I can go back to Brazil and
:22:02. > :22:03.do it. I find it very perplexing. If some jurisdictions improve your
:22:04. > :22:07.format, taking it and improving on it and then you that sell their
:22:08. > :22:14.version to other people. You sell their ideas on. Absolutely. In
:22:15. > :22:20.conjunction, they will come up with a brilliant idea and the community
:22:21. > :22:27.will benefit. It works both ways. We had a lot of problems with a show
:22:28. > :22:34.which is quite similar to Survivor called Get Out Of here. -- get me
:22:35. > :22:38.out of here. It encourage us to sell a celebrity version in territories
:22:39. > :22:43.we had sold it in before. How much do we get to these insurance? How
:22:44. > :22:49.much did the US pay for an episode of Survivor? Every deal is
:22:50. > :22:55.different. Generally speaking, the format he is between 1%- 10% of the
:22:56. > :22:59.Budget. There may be additional things such as merchandising or
:23:00. > :23:01.licensing which you do in conjunction with broadcasters that
:23:02. > :23:07.every deal is different and territory dependent. Survivor is an
:23:08. > :23:11.expensive show to make. Production costs of the American chill are
:23:12. > :23:19.probably $600,000 or more per episode. It obviously doesn't sound
:23:20. > :23:25.like it is that much money. I just try to get a rough idea if you get,
:23:26. > :23:33.I don't know, $50,000 per episode, it isn't bad. It isn't as much as
:23:34. > :23:38.people think. In mid-range format E for a mid range European territory
:23:39. > :23:45.such as Sweden Poland could be around 3000 euros per episode. That
:23:46. > :23:49.little? Think of it in terms of volume, of course. If you have a
:23:50. > :23:53.successful daytime television show and you play it 40 weeks out of the
:23:54. > :23:59.year, that is five times 40, whatever that is. You have longevity
:24:00. > :24:06.and it could run for years and years. We better end it there. My
:24:07. > :24:17.guests, Charlie Parsons, the Wii is Peterson, and Ricardo Pereira. If
:24:18. > :24:20.any of you want to purchase this format, I will entertain offers and
:24:21. > :24:22.I will write the two bible. My thanks to our guest. I will be back
:24:23. > :24:32.with more guest next week. Don't forget the downloads are
:24:33. > :24:36.available on the website. You can always listen to it on the radio. We
:24:37. > :24:56.also like to get your e-mails. The weather is taking its toll on
:24:57. > :25:01.many parts of the UK at the moment. Attention has turned to the strength
:25:02. > :25:06.of the wind in the south with an ample warning from the Met Office in
:25:07. > :25:11.the southern counties. Just up to 70 mph inland or 80 mph along the coast
:25:12. > :25:14.as we go into the morning. The storm will crawl northwards. We will see