Andy Culpin, 12 Yard

Signing the £35m cheque to acquire 12 Yard at the end of 2007 was a turning point for ITV Studios. The deal, agreed by the company’s then managing director of global content, Dawn Airey, was the first step in a major expansion strategy for ITVS, which has since snaffled up several independent producers at home and, more recently, in the US.

David Young, founder of 12 Yard, who is best known for conceiving The Weakest Link while at the BBC, left the company following the deal, but protégé Andy Culpin stayed on as managing director. He continues to create new formats and maintain those that propelled 12 Yard, which was previously part-owned by Hat Trick, to the front of ITVS’s thoughts.

“The best thing about being an ITV Studios-owned indie is the feeling that we can have our cake and eat it,” says Culpin. “I know it’s an oxymoron, but we feel very much like we have the spirit of an independent production company as our objectives are the same as they have always been.”

Different perspectives

Culpin cuts a relaxed figure, taking short sips of coffee in between enthusiastic chatter. In the meeting room where we sit, recent hits such as ITV’s Big Star’s Little Star and BBC1’s The Guess List were born. The table we’re occupying is where he and his team brainstorm for hours, playing games and devising questions. Two televisions in the room hang vertically, sandwiching a set in its traditional horizontal position, so the team can judge questions and formats from different perspectives.

Apart from these curiously positioned TVs, the room is unremarkable. The walls are all white with navy blue glass doors, although the wall adjacent to the entrance is covered with scores of mounted plaques depicting the logos of some of 12 Yard’s most successful shows.

If it’s long-running household names you’re after then, boy, what a line-up. As well as its recent hits, shows like Coach Trip, National Lottery: In It To Win It and Eggheads still regularly attract large numbers of viewers. It’s no wonder that ITV was so keen to acquire such a certified hit- maker, but Culpin talks of a relation- ship with reciprocal benefits.

“We’re creatively free to do what we want, but what I like to call the ‘plumbing’ – jobs like business affairs, international distribution and payroll – is all taken care of by ITV,” he says. “That enables me and my team to spend as much time as possible coming up with ideas, producing them and keeping our long-running brands feeling fresh and successful.”

For Culpin, ITV’s skill and scale in international distribution is one of the most constructive parts of the relationship. He says the broadcaster’s Global Distribution arm does “much of the leg work” of “championing” 12 Yard’s formats to increase their global reach.

As an example, Culpin cites the deal ITVS recently brokered with broad- casters in Finland, Belgium, Korea and Ukraine for international versions of Big Star’s Little Star.

Seeing the Korean version of the Stephen Mulhern-fronted programme for the first time was “surreal”, he says. “It looks like our show, the vibe is the same, but of course they’re laughing at some revelations about a celebrity you’re not familiar with in a language you don’t understand.”

Format sales like that are the “holy grail” for the former BBC light entertainment chief, though in the same breath he highlights the success of Eggheads, which sells well as a finished programme in English- speaking countries.

BBC2’s popular quiz has been on our screens for more than a decade and in some ways encapsulates 12 Yard as a company very well. The indie has long been known for creating, and crucially sustaining, long- running programmes.

“We’ve found a good way of making high-quality shows in volume and at a really good price,” says Culpin. “As budgets become more challenging, it’s more and more important that we’re able to do that because no one wants a daytime show to look substantially worse than a peak-time one.”

Keeping long-running formats fresh is a “challenge”, Culpin concedes, adding that it is dangerous to assume “they can just run them- selves”. He emphasises the quality of questions for its gameshow formats, the personalities of contestants on Coach Trip, and hosts like John Barrowman (Pressure Pad) and the Lottery’s Dale Winton, who “fits Saturday night like a glove”.

So can 12 Yard’s new formats achieve the same longevity?

Culpin appears hopeful and although neither Big Star’s Little Star nor The Guess List has yet been recommissioned, the signs are good, especially for the latter, which has had a chance to cement its place in a coveted Saturday night primetime BBC1 slot.

Culpin says: “It’s been well received by the channel and it’s rated well, so we’re hoping for another series. Likewise with Big Star’s Little Star. It’s just finished its run, but once things become more established, it makes it easier to get people to take part in it.”

Funny business

As the appointment of Paul McGettigan in February last year illustrates, the comedy quiz format is of increasing interest to 12 Yard. Although Culpin says his company will never dabble in scripted, he is open about the opportunities he’s identified in lighter formats.

“It’s a new direction for us to take formatted entertainment and make it funny,” he says. “I also think there’s something in the tone of the times at the moment that people want softer, warmer, friendlier formats as opposed to the high- tension, dramatic-sums-of-money genre we’re very good at.”

Although nothing definitive can yet be announced, Culpin says 12 Yard is close to having “two or three” new series commissioned, one of which could be a daytime format.

“It’s always a juggling act between managing the existing slate and spending enough time focusing on new things. Getting the balance right is tough,” he says. “Anyone in broad- cast can say they have a strong pipe- line, but it means nothing. If it’s not in the Radio Times, it might not happen, so don’t count your chickens.”