Weekly: Hot take on a transitioning format market

If you’re wondering where the global format market stands right now, take a look at two deals unveiled within 24 hours of each other this week.

One involved a local, brand-supported remake of a viral interview show that started out on YouTube.

The other saw a format created four years after humans first landed on the moon heading to a Spanish public broadcaster.

Possibly not much to connect the two? Yet delve a little deeper and there are clear parallels between both shows – putting the decades between their originations to one side.

Pyramid scheming

Let’s deal with the Spanish reboot of 52-year-old format The Pyramid first.

The Sony Pictures Television show is a veteran of the gameshow world, having been created back in 1973 in the US, where it originally aired on CBS.

It has been renewed and tweaked over the years - it is currently known as The $100,000 Pyramid and airs stateside on ABC - and is by no means a newcomer to international remakes, with more than 20 local versions to date.

But the deal in Spain is notable for several reasons, not least because it marks the first time the format has been remade in the country. Whether you see this as risk aversity taken to new levels or a brave strategic gamble probably depends on if you’re sitting in the selling or buying side of the format business.

Another eyebrow raiser is that this is yet another international format to have been acquired by Spain’s public broadcaster, RTVE, following a flurry of activity over recent months.

In June, RTVE brought in All3Media’s Race Across The World to sit alongside NBCUniversal’s dating show Baggage, while local adaptations of The Chase, The Floor, That’s My Jam, MasterChef, The Connection and The Great Sewing Bee are all already on the pubcaster’s screens.

Local producer Globomedia is onboard The $100,000 Pyramid adaptation, but there are some in Spain who question how leaning so heavily on imported IP can help support domestic producers’ original ideas.

Yet the country’s reliance on imported entertainment formats – unlike its expanding scripted exports – is not new. What the latest pick-ups under recently installed director of TV Sergio Calderón really underline, however, is a desire to super-serve a viewer even if they likely reside in the older demos.

And The Pyramid (to be known locally as La Piramide) isn’t even the oldest format to have been acquired by RTVE over recent years – it also has a reboot of Jeopardy! on its books.

That show made its daytime bow in the US in 1964, but its ability to engage an audience remains. For anyone in the format distribution business who doesn’t have a remake in the works with RTVE, it might be worth picking up the phone.

Spreading its wings

Shifting the focus from Spain to Germany brings us to a slightly different type of deal, but one that again delivers on the central tenet of the format industry: proven IP that promises engagement.

Viral interview show Hot Ones was created in 2015 for YouTube by Chris Schonberger from US-based First We Feast.

It features celebrities being interviewed whilst eating spicy hot wings and it’s not only really rather good, but also rather valuable: struggling media operator BuzzFeed sold the IP to investors for $82.5m last year.

Some of that is now no doubt being recouped with the German remake of the show, which is being remade by Keshet International’s Tresor Productions and Endgame Entertainment. And the commissioner? It’s a brand-funded push with the support of food delivery firm Uber Eats.

The deal is believed to be the first local remake since the BuzzFeed sale and underlines that just because a show might have been watched 2.6 billion times worldwide, a local focus can still generate an audience.

Talent will of course be key – the US original has drafted in the likes of Jennifer Lawrence, David Beckham, Billie Eilish and Shaquille O’Neal, with many episodes attracting tens of millions views – but if you like the sound of it (and understand German), take a look: it launched yesterday on YouTube.

And while there are myriad factors that set Hot Ones and The $100,000 Pyramid apart, both shows neatly demonstrate that the central premise of the format model remains, regardless of who is funding the production.

For those owning or creating IP that can be remade in new territories, it suggests that the transitioning world of the format market will continue to provide a broad spectrum of opportunities for a while yet.