Unscriptedpofc Octnov19.Indd 1 03/10/2019 00:39 © Martha Robbins MPI-EVA
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Insight on screen TBIvision.com | October/November 2019 | MIPCOM Issue Television Business International Minding the gap Funding splashy formats 4 Crazy cash TBI Unscripted Streaming roundtable 8 WILL IT BE LOVE AT FIRST DANCE? As ordered by Broadcasting Network As seen on @all3media_int all3mediainternational.com UnscriptedpOFC OctNov19.indd 1 03/10/2019 00:39 © Martha Robbins MPI-EVA 1×50 min. GORILLAS UP CLOSE 1×50 min. BORN IN THE ROCKIES 1×50 min. THE HUNT FOR ESCOBAR’S HIPPOS www.terramater.com MEET US AT MIPCOM! Visit us at our booth Riviera R7.C30 FormatspIFC Terra Mater OctNov19.indd 1 01/10/2019 09:29 TBI Unscripted | This Issue Contents October/November 2019 2. Charting a path to the Maze Contact us Why US kids network Nickelodeon turned to a decades-old UK format aimed at adults to encourage family viewing Editor Manori Ravindran [email protected] 4. Mind the gap Direct line +44 (0) 20 3377 3832 Delivering a splashy format is getting more expensive and more complicated to fund. Twitter @manori_r So how is it done? Managing editor Richard Middleton 8. Roundtable: Crazy cash and snackable shorts [email protected] Format experts dish on how they’re working with Quibi, Netflix et al. Direct line +44 (0) 20 7017 7184 14. e New Money Contributor Tim Dams, Irina Zakharova Our handy chart breaks down all you need to know about the new streamers. Sales manager Michael Callan 16. Forward thinking [email protected] Why Avi Armoza sold the company he founded to ITV Studio.s Direct line +44 (0) 20 7017 5295 20. Viewpoint Art director Matthew Humberstone Endemol Shine’s Lisa Perrin reflects on why 20-year-old Big Brother still resonates [email protected] Direct line +44 (0) 20 7017 5336 22. Formats Hot Picks The hottest formats heading down to Cannes include Five Guys A Week and Don’t. Marketing executive Abigail Dede [email protected] 28. Factual Hot Picks Direct line +44 (0) 20 7017 6018 Breaking down the best non-fiction one-offs and series on offer to global buyers. Editorial director Stuart Thomson [email protected] 4 Direct line +44 (0) 20 7017 5314 Commercial director Patricia Arescy [email protected] Direct line +44 (0) 20 7017 5320 @TBImagazine Published by Informa Tech, Blue Fin Building, 110 Southwark Street, London SE1 0TA e-mail: [email protected] web: www.tbivision.com Printed in England by Walstead Roche Ltd, St Austell, Cornwall PL26 8LX. © 2019 Informa UK Ltd All rights reserved Reproduction without permission is prohibited October/November 2019 1 Unscriptedp01 Contents OctNov19.indd 1 03/10/2019 00:26 TBI Formats | The Crystal Maze Charting a path to the Maze US kids network Nickelodeon turned to a decades-old UK format originally aimed at adults to bolster its unscripted offering and attract a co-viewing audience. Richard Middleton finds out why emand for family shows that drive co- Nickelodeon, who happened to recall watching the viewing has been surging over the past show in his younger years, was faced with the task of year, prompting both new format ideas finding an unscripted show that could oer something coming to market but also a flicking dierent to both his younger viewers and their parents. Dthrough of the back catalogue for unexploited gems. “Nick has a history of unscripted but over the past And few shows were as unexploited as The Crystal few years there hadn’t been a lot of such shows on the Maze. The format has been around in the UK for network,” explains Rob Bagshaw, who was named more than three decades since making its debut on head of unscripted at Nickelodeon in January. Channel 4 in the 1990s, creating a legion of loyal “Our president Brian Robbins picked up on this fans. But it had never travelled abroad and was little The Crystal Maze has and realised that our young audience was watching a known beyond UK shores. always skewed towards a lot of unscripted hits on other networks, as well as on That was until a Brit working for US kids channel younger audience the streamers and other platforms – YouTube and the 2 October/November 2019 Formatsp02-03 Crystal Maze OctNov19MR RM.indd 2 02/10/2019 22:51 TBI Formats | The Crystal Maze like. He said we should be giving them those sorts of technicality” related to fellow adventure format Fort shows on Nick.” “We could have Boyard it was Adventure Line Productions, a sister Bagshaw, a veteran of reality TV, started exploring created an original company of Banijay. That was in 2011. his options, looking at both fresh IP and older formats. idea about escape “I spent the next six years trying to bring it back, but “A lot of new ideas are adult versus child, or family rooms but there was the big thing was that I’d have to say to broadcasters versus family, but the great thing about The Crystal already this existing that if you want to try this show and see if it works Maze is that it is family versus the house,” he explains show in the UK.” again, you’ve got to build a 32,000-square foot set. from the show’s set at the Bottle Yard Studios in Rob Bagshaw That is expensive and a big risk.” Bristol, UK. Nickelodeon With the superfan-created Crystal Maze Live “The family plays together and so they succeed or Experience set already in place in London, however, fail against the house. And it is not a show that puts Simpson saw an opportunity. As part of a Channel contestants in conflict with other human beings – that 4 fundraising night of programming, the broadcaster is a good message.” was rebooting a series of classic series and The With The Crystal Maze in mind, Bagshaw turned Crystal Maze, set within the experience centre, got the to the UK to explore the viability of taking this veteran greenlight. format – originally aimed at adults – and remaking it Not that it was straightforward. Simpson says it was for kids in the US. “hell” as the crew turned the centre into a functioning In the classic format, teams of five or six contestants TV set in barely 12 hours, but the eort was worth it. – adults, in the original UK series – attempt to win “We delivered the show 12 hours before it went on crystals by completing physical and mental games air. When I woke up to the overnights, 4.5m people within themed zones that include Aztec, Future, had watched it. I sat in a café crying and Tom Beck, Industrial and a fourth area that has previously Channel 4’s commissioner, phoned up and said, ‘We’re reflected a Medieval and Eastern look. Each crystal doing more.’” allows the team to spend five seconds inside a huge They did just that and when Bagshaw came calling, dome, within which they must catch gold tokens that an entire set – rather than an experience centre – had are being blown around by fans. These can then be been already created. “The set is so immersive, it’s exchanged for prizes. beautiful, and it is up and running and that is an “When you present this format, and with the zones expensive thing to do,” the Nick exec says. “To bring you go through, the conversation we had was more a family to do it here with people who know exactly about the escape room phenomenon and how that how these games work in a pre-existing set made much is something that kids and families in the US love to more sense than trying to recreate that in the US and do,” he says. “There hadn’t been a version of that on start from scratch.” TV – we could’ve created an original idea about escape Nick named Adam Conover as host, taking a key rooms but there was already this existing idea in the role as the quirky and eccentric leader who takes UK.” the teams through the maze, while RDF, which is In fact, there had been an existing set – of sorts – in producing with Bunim/Murray Productions (BMP), the UK, too, for a few years, and without the rat- tweaked the games to ensure younger players and their infested river that snaked through the original location. families could play. It had been created by a group of superfans, who Bagshaw, who says he is looking at cookery and funded a project to recreate the show in all its glory pet series to add to Nick’s unscripted slate, has also and then allowed others to experience the series for been keen to ensure a diverse range of families are cast. themselves, paying for the privilege. He adds that while the target demo is kids, the show It was aimed at long-term fans of the show, such has also been embraced by older children and adults as Neale Simpson, creative director at Fizz, the watching alongside. entertainment label for Banijay Group-backed RDF “Crystal Maze is such a clean and strong format Television. As a long-term devotee of the series, that it was not di§cult at all to adapt for the kids and Simpson had not just watched the programme in its family audience,” adds Gil Goldschein, chairman and Channel 4 days but he had brought it back to life. CEO at BMP. He had initially been trying to come up with a “big “Obviously, we had to ensure that the physical gameshow idea” and thought he’d landed on a winner challenges contained within the various zones were when, mid-pitch, he “realised it was just a crap knock- age-appropriate, but other than that, the game play o of The Crystal Maze”.