Come one, come all
Formats are big business. This year alone has seen dozens of debuts including localized versions of Million Dollar Money Drop in Singapore, Minute To Win It in Malaysia and India, Hole in the Wall in Cambodia, Top Gear in both Korea and China, a pan-regional version of France’s It’s a Knockout and Cash Cab Asia. Along with returning shows such as Idol, The X Factor, MasterChef, and Amazing Race, it would be hard not to notice that Asia’s been well and truly formatted.

“It’s almost essential now to have localized formats,” said Brad Cox, Creative Director at ActiveTV Asia, which produced such shows as Amazing Race Asia and Korea’s Opera Star. “It’s a difficult situation because to invest in a format involves so much money from the networks. But those that have, have reaped the rewards.”

Cox said that as the quality strengthens the next step will be for broadcasters to embark on more pan-regional productions, which also helps to spread the cost. “[Regional formats] are important as it expands the competative drama and brings in patriotism. For instance, Indonesia getting a team into the final three of the last Amazing Race Asia was a big deal. Especially when their football team didn’t get anywhere near the World Cup final!” he added wryly.

David Searl, General Manager of ice-TV is also seeing growing opportunities in developing panregional format productions. Having just wrapped The Biggest Gameshow in the World Asia in Kuala Lumpur [see adjoining story], ice-TV is now developing Asia’s Next Top Model.

“Six years ago, formats were more a novelty than the norm. Indonesia was one the first to really embrace the big formats. Now everyone’s having a go but cost is still the biggest hurdle and still you’re not guranteed a sure fire hit, even with the big brand shows. Regional lessens the risk and can also help bring in some big name sponsors.”

Educated audiences
Rahmat A Samad, Executive Producer of English Entertainment Productions at MediaCorp was in charge of one of the year’s biggest shows, Million Dollar Money Drop. Launched in August, the broadcaster took a calculated risk with the format, choosing not to air an international version beforehand to ‘train up’ the public.

“We normally try out a show first by playing the US version. With this one, we went straight in with it and were really surprised with the amount of interest the show had,” said Samad. “We had to do four weekends of auditions, it was massive.”

Samad said one of the biggest pressures (apart from producing the shows) comes from audiences having very high expectations due to the number of international formats they now digest.

“They compare versions very closely. Singaporeans are definitely more aware of these big shows now. Of course it also means they are willing to watch different styles of formats. There’s also the possibilty we can try formats that didn’t do so well in the past – such as The Weakest Link.”

Other territories are also making calculated risks with new formats. In April, China’s Hunan TV launched its own version of Top Gear.

“The show has been extremely popular on the internet in China,” said Liu Xichen, Executive Producer of Top Gear China and President of Shixi Media. “China has become the biggest car manufacturer in the world and cars have become part of many peoples’ lives.

Although it’s a motoring show it’s also an entertainment show and we knew this would be accepted by our audience. On average, we have 3 million people watching each weekly episode.”

Liu added that the series, which is filmed in different parts of China, is going with the trend and personalizing many of the show’s segments. “In one episode we put a BMW against a pigeon bicycle from the 1960s. Due to Beijing’s traffic being very difficult the bicycle ended up winning!

“Something we are also conscious of is the car culture in China is very different,” said Liu. “In the West some families have multiple cars. In China this is not so. It represents wealth and status, so we avoid featuring too luxurious cars. We don’t want to show off too much in our programme and instead concentrate on humour.”

Ground work
With all this flurry of activity localizing and acquiring formats for the region, opportunities to develop original programme ideas and even move them beyond the region’s shores, are being pursued.

Ong Hee Yah, Head of Caldecott Productions International (CPI) in Singapore, believes the region is ripe with ideas. “Asia, the whole region, has a lot of very good original formats. But I think we have not yet done the marketing part well. We haven’t shouted as loudly as we could have,” she said.

This year, CPI produced the second season of its original format The Big Shot. The unscripted series taps into one of Singapore’s popular pasttimes, photography. Sponsored by Nikon, the weekly show challenges professional photographers to try their hand at various forms of still photography, all with the deadline clock ticking.

“All of our photographers enjoyed the experience and we came up with some really interesting and entertaining challenges. One of the finalists actually said at the end “you’re not a photographer till you’ve been through Big Shot”. Also a great validation are the judges we were able to attract. They’re all of international standard and they liked our concept,” said Ong.

Ong added CPI has more original formats in the pipeline and also developing ideas for MediaCorp’s newly launched Content Innovation Fund. In terms of Big Shot, CPI is now aiming to get it into neighbouring markets. “But there’s the slight issue of IP,” said Ong. “Because we don’t have the marketing power of the big format distributors there’s the concern someone may copy it or make it there’s. But in this business you can’t become too worried about this. Just pray that if someone does it fails as they don’t have the brains behind it.”

Sparks Network Asia-Pacific, a distributors and development network for television formats, is also seeing a marked increase in business in the region. In the past 12 months it has doubled its membership from four to eight members, making up 1/3 of Sparks’ global business. It now represents content companies in Australia, China, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, India and English-speaking SEA.

“We’ve been placing a lot of Asia’s original formats this year,” said Gary Pudney, Asia-Pacific Head. “Such as True or False from Indonesia’s Lemon Productions and reality show SOS Japan that sold to 15 non-Asian broadcasters.

“Internationalizing the shows is sometimes a challenge but the market is open and moving…When it comes to the big boys they are desparate for new big brand shows and outside the UK and US the borders begin to dissolve. There is every potential for more big formats to be picked up from Asia.”

Pipe dreams
As Asia continues to digest the evergrowing catalogue of formats available, what are some of the shows producers want to make in the new year?

“I’d personally love to do The Voice,” said MediaCorp’s Samad. “A singing show like Idol but more about the voice. Big talent shows like the X Factor are tough, Singapore’s pool is just too small.”

Shixi’s Liu wants to get one with nature. “China’s satellite TV stations are good at doing studiobased shows, but we would like to do outdoor reality shows. The production costs are greater but we are very keen to explore this and more reality TV.”

Heirlooms and going undercover is something Active’s Cox wants to dabble in. “I’d love to do Antiques Roadshow Asia. It’s never been done across the region and makes for great television. I also think Undercover Boss would perform well here. I like the sentiment – it’s screaming to be made in Asia.”