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Networks Look Beyond the U.S. for Their next big hit

 
(Mediaweek.com)

We Are The World

Networks look beyond the U.S. for their next big hit

A.J. Frutkin >> ajfrutkin@sbcglobal.net

FEBRUARY 25, 2008 -

At least as far back as All in the Family, the broadcast networks have been looking overseas for content. But programmers clearly are looking for more now, and they're looking far beyond the United Kingdom.

ABC's Ugly Betty hails from Colombia. HBO's In Treatment comes from Israel. NBC has ordered Australian sitcom Kath and Kim, and with Canada's CTV, it's co-producing The Listener, about a telepathic paramedic. Also with CTV, CBS is producing the cop drama Flashpoint. From Jerry Bruckheimer, it is developing the British sci-fi drama Eleventh Hour, while in-laws sitcom Worst Week is another Brit adaptation at the network.

The writers' strike may have hastened the trend, necessitating—and allowing—the networks to look elsewhere for new scripted content. But even before the strike, TV execs were in search of foreign formats. After all, when looking for the next big hit, programmers can be very democratic.

"We'll take good ideas wherever we can find them," said Carolyn Strauss, president of HBO Entertainment. Strauss likened the search to feeding a gaping maw. "The hunger for ideas is such a voracious beast, it only makes sense to see what one might snack on," she added.

Meanwhile, the quality of foreign content continues to improve globally. "The U.S. has become more outward-looking than it used to be," said Ian Moffitt, vp of programming and content strategy for BBC Worldwide America. "But there's also a lot more to look at."

Moffitt credited adapting U.K.'s Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and The Weakest Link with opening the door to foreign formats, especially nonscripted formats, the importation of which continues to outpace that of scripted series.

For Fox reality chief Mike Darnell, the reason is simple. "The hardest way to launch reality is to come up with something unique and new," he said, frankly. "One of the easiest ways is to find something that's already working."

But just because a show works overseas, doesn't mean it automatically will succeed here. For example, Darnell said he amped up the U.S. version of Kitchen Nightmares, making host and chef Gordon Ramsey more "aggressive" because, as Darnell put it, "Americans in general are more aggressive."

Ironically, NBC's remake of American Gladiators is based less on the original U.S. version of the show than on Great Britain's version. Craig Plestis, NBC's executive vp of alternative programming, said that in traveling overseas, he became enamored with watching repeats of the British American Gladiators. "They just did it bigger than we ever did," he said. "They kicked it up about 10 notches, and I just loved the spectacle of it."

Not every show needs to be drastically tweaked. Plestis said NBC's upcoming version of another British import, The Baby Borrowers, keeps what he calls the show's "core format" of social experimentation intact. The net also is developing Top Gear, a BBC show focusing on car culture. Plestis said the format is so fresh, all it may need is an American host and cast.

Tweaking scripted series for U.S. audiences can be risky. Case in point: BBC's Coupling quickly flamed out on NBC. Teri Weinberg, executive vp of NBC Entertainment, who was a Reveille exec at the time of Coupling's 2003 launch, said there may just have been too much hype surrounding the show. "Coupling needed more time and patience to hit its stride," she said, adding that was the case with The Office, another Reveille/NBC adaptation.

Despite the success of scripted formats, logistical barriers may still continue to limit their import. The BBC's Moffitt said timing sales of scripted series to coincide with U.S. broadcasters' development process is tricky. "Hitting the milestones throughout the development season, of finding writers here in the U.S.—at the same time that everyone else is—and segueing that with the U.K. talent attached to the project, and their availability, it always proves to be something of a challenge," he said.