Global Formats and Canadian Television: the Case of Deal Or No Deal

Global Formats and Canadian Television: The Case of Deal or No Deal Ira Wagman Carleton University ABSTRACT This article discusses the circulation of format television, with a particular em - phasis on the Canadian version of the program Deal or No Deal . It argues for the importance of circulation as a concept for understanding the ways in which format television programs— and other forms of popular culture—travel in different cultural contexts. Through the case of Deal we can see how delays, interruptions, re-purposing, and reframing of artifacts are part of the daily rhythms that characterize the circulation of cultural works on a global scale and serve as a possible analytical opening for appreciating the flows of culture that have histori - cally existed between the United States and Canada. KEYWORDS Television; Canada; Circulation; Globalization RÉSUMÉ Cet article examine la circulation des formats télévisés, mettant un accent particulier sur la version canadienne de l’émission Deal or No Deal . Il affirme l’importance de la circulation pour comprendre comment les formats télévisés—et d’autres formes de culture populaire—diffèrent selon le milieu culturel. Avec Deal or No Deal , on peut voir comment les retards, interruptions, adaptations et recadrages font partie intégrante des rythmes quotidiens qui caractérisent la circulation des œuvres culturelles à l’échelle mondiale et offrent une ouverture possible pour l’analyse de ces flux culturels qui ont longtemps existé entre les États-Unis et le Canada. MOTS CLÉS Télévision; Canada; Circulation; Mondialisation he television show Deal or No Deal is a modern-day take on the shell game. A con - Ttestant attempts to find the largest amount of money from a number of briefcases. Some of the cases contain small amounts; others have larger sums. After selecting a briefcase the contestant opens the other briefcases, often showcased by models, re - vealing their contents one at a time. The process of discovery is occasionally inter - rupted by a phone call from a “banker” who offers the contestant the opportunity to “sell” their briefcase for a sum of money. That amount is determined by probability: the more likely the contestant is holding a briefcase containing a large amount of money, the higher the offer from the banker. Toward the end of the round the con - testant has to make a decision: either make the deal to sell the case or continue open - ing briefcases until discovering whether or not they made the right deal. The decision-making process plays out slowly, with interviews of the contestant’s family Ira Wagman is Associate Professor of Communication in the School of Journalism and Communication at Carleton University, 4309 River Building, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6 . Email: [email protected] . Canadian Journal of Communication Vol 38 (20 13) 611 –627 ©20 13 Canadian Journal of Communication Corporation 612 Canadian Journal of Communication, Vol 38 (4) members of friends in attendance, guest appearances by local celebrities, and adver - tisements dragging out the suspense. Deal was originally developed by the Dutch production company Endemol in 2004, and there have been adaptations in more than 60 different countries, from Albania to Zimbabwe. If Wikipedia is to be believed, the show has recently premiered in Costa Rica, Egypt, and Iran. Canadian audiences have seen numerous versions of the program. The American version aired on NBC and was simultaneously broadcast on Global. Two “Canadian editions” of the program followed: Deal or No Deal Canada aired six episodes in 2007 for English-language audiences, while Le Banquier offered a French-language version to Québec’s television audiences from 2007 to 2009. However these are not the only versions that many Canadians have seen since the show began. Numerous versions of the program air in other languages that are part of the programming of international satellite channels and there are versions of the show that air in syndication and Deal exists in a variety of other media, from an electronic board game to lottery tickets, as well as in various online forms. While little has been written about Deal or No Deal within communication and media studies 1—indeed, the same could be said for the genre of game shows as a whole 2—much has been made about the international flows of format programs within studies of contemporary television (for example see Bielby & Harrington, 2008; Moran, 1998, 2009; Moran & Keane, 2004; Oren & Shahaf, 2012; Zwaan & de Bruin, 2012). Recent work has taken up this topic of format television in the Canadian context, with discussions on the Idol franchise and the proliferation of Canadian versions of lifestyle television programs, like makeover shows (Baltruschat, 2009; Boyd, 2012; Matheson, 2009). Such work follows a similar line of argument: That the movement of format television, a “global” aspect of culture, is based in large part on its ability to flatter cultural and national difference. This is because, as textual forms, format televi - sion programs are incomplete by design; they travel as shells of programs, with basic designs, rules, and regulations, but then offer numerous opportunities for the addition of localized talent, content, and sponsorship. The processes by which format television programs come to appear on the airwaves are usually characterized by a linguistic vo - cabulary having to do either with translation or with adaptation. In this article I suggest that these processes can best be understood with a broader conceptual vocabulary than that offered in the literature. My reason for taking this approach is that in Canada the re-purposing, or localiz - ing, of the text is really only half of the story, and this does not adequately account for the role played by media formats within the Canadian media landscape both histori - cally and in the present day. In the introduction to their recent collection on format television, Oren and Shahaf (2012) note the importance of “grappling with the globally shifting structure of television consumption and reception” (p. 4). One might say this is something Canadian television audiences have experienced for some time now, even if such grappling has been either undocumented or poorly understood as part of the wider poor treatment afforded to television in Canada itself as an object of study. Canadian television has always been a hybrid system, one that mixes Canadian pro - gramming with material that comes from elsewhere. We might boldly say that Wagman Global Formats and Canadian Television 613 Canadian television was always a globalized system, since there was never any real be - lief that it would be an entirely Canadian system, only that a certain percentage of the total flows of television were to be Canadian in content and character, as we all know. With that in mind, in what follows I want to use Deal or No Deal as an opportunity to reflect upon some broader dynamics present in the study of television in Canada, as much as an understanding of the nature of how format moves from place to place on a global level. What will become apparent is that the practice of “Canadianizing” format televi - sion represents one of the unintended consequences of key aspects of Canadian media policy. In return for Canadian ownership of television networks comes the ability for those networks to import Canadian editions of programs created elsewhere and pro - duced by domestic production companies. The tendency towards what we call “import substitution” has historically produced a considerable amount of anxiety, often asso - ciated with the production of “derivative” cultural works, with the “Americanization” of Canadian culture and the decline of authentic forms of Canadian cultural expression . Yet the ability to import and re-purpose global texts for the Canadian marketplace has benefits—providing employment, generating revenue for independent production companies, and helping broadcasters meet their content restrictions. So we can say that format television shows do a considerable amount of “work” for national media systems that the literature on adaptation has been largely unable to address. To illustrate, I provide a brief overview of the literature on format television and suggest how that literature might benefit from recent work on the concept of circula - tion that has been present in other discussions in cultural theory dealing with cultural movement. Then I turn to the case of Deal to draw attention to how the initial exposure to the show, viewing the American version on a Canadian network, is a prominent feature of the Canadian television experience. I then point to the role played by local production companies and ancillary agencies, such as board game manufacturers and lottery corporations, in acting as “envoys”—to use Albert Moran’s term (2010, p. 111)— who purchase the territorial rights to broadcast the show in Canada or license the for - mat for some other purpose, before setting about adapting the show for Canadian audiences. I note the ways in which production companies in Canada frequently im - port and adapt programs from elsewhere, in part to generate revenues to support the production of works for smaller, locally based audiences. Finally, I note the role that is played by television critics, who help to circulate public talk about shows like Deal within broader discourses of television in general, and of English-Canadian nationalism in particular. Deal or No Deal and global format television Deal or No Deal is a typical example of the kind of television programming that Justin Malbon and Albert Moran term “format TV” (Moran & Malbon, 2006) . By this term the authors referred to the fact that the show’s basic elements (its rules and regulations, its theme songs, its production information and set design, etc.) are developed by a production company and then licensed out to various entitles, either production stu - dios or broadcasters, to be adapted for local audiences.

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