TBI Weekly: The problem with the UK’s format isolationism

Siobhan Crawford

With MIPCOM on the horizon, European format specialist Siobhan Crawford offers a plea to UK companies to use the opportunity to more deeply engage with their counterparts in Europe, rather than relying on local talent for new formats.

I was at Edinburgh TV Festival last month. Lovely market. Nothing new though.

So now we look forward to MIPCOM – a slew of content is coming our way. In the heart of Europe, we will meet with broadcasters, prodcos, creatives and distributors.

MIPCOM, at its core, is an inclusive market to acquire content. So after a truly isolationist Edinburgh TV Festival, I have to ask British broadcasters/streamers and prodcos; why attend MIPCOM if you only want to receive ideas/pitches from producers from the UK and when UK prodcos only want to work on their own IP, rather than acquiring third party content?

This is all very taboo. I understand.

The UK is the only market in the Western world that doesn’t engage with Europe in an easy exchange of ideas & formats

And it goes broader than just one event, it is the modus operandi of the UK market that is unspoken. And if you are part of a large prodco group then it might only be partially true as you will have a central team pushing you to acquire content outside your comfort zone every six months. This is likely to cause offense, but if you take this as an eye-opener then perhaps some of you will remedy this and dive into the huge opportunity that is awaiting at MIPCOM as you embrace European content. Cheaper than your R&D budget, tested in the heart of Europe and created with international in mind.

The British problem

At present, the UK broadcasters and streamers do not know how to acquire formats if there is not a UK producer pitching it. This was actually said to me.

The UK is the only market in the Western world that does not engage with the European market in the easy exchange of ideas and formats, preferring to develop their own ideas and not wanting distributors or creatives from abroad to approach broadcasters and streamers without a UK producer in the middle. Let that settle in.

Translation – Europeans/foreigners have to give our formats for free, for a long duration of time plus a piece of the IP, to a British prodco to sell in the UK. And that is if we do find a UK producer who actually wants foreign IP; the UK market is saturated by producers who say they only want to develop their own IP. The broadcasters/streamers say it is because they only want to work with people they have a relationship with, witty banter and shared stories that makes a pitch more fun. Big question: why do the ideas matter less than the relationships when it comes to formats in the UK?

Perhaps we internationals need to stop seeing the UK as the pinnacle – a Dutch commission is an innovative thing, a Finnish commission is wonderful, a German commission is huge

There is also a huge knowledge gap between the UK and Europe. The UK considers themselves the largest exporter of formats globally, but UK producers do not know how to pitch their content into Europe because they never established the relationships we Europeans have been nurturing for decades. And the Europeans make less and less effort to pitch into the UK, giving UK arms of the big groups the best access to international content.

How distribution works

A reminder here; distributors and broadcasters, creators and prodcos have great ideas. They see international potential, they create materials like a deck and sizzle and they project it into every corner of the world and see which territory bites. The UK currently has some kind of invisible forcefield repelling all the content – only when someone offers the format for free, with a really long option and a piece of the IP does it fall from the sky and land on someone’s plate (slightly less loved then their own developments).

In Europe, most public broadcasters, prodcos and distributors in the unscripted format space know of each other. It is a community. They can send and receive emails directly, Whatsapp each other and be on top of new commissions and developments quickly. They will know what is original content and derivatives. Broadcasters will license content directly and then find their preferred producer. Prodcos from France will pitch a format in the Netherlands and be able to co-produce it alongside their chosen local prodco, while retaining the lead position. A German broadcaster will acquire a format directly from a distributor at a European pitch, loving an idea from a sizzle without any need for the distributor to be an ex-colleague or, as stated in Edinburgh, a “fun person”.

The rub

We may have had Megxit and Brexit, but the scorn the UK is delivering to the European market is reversible when it comes to unscripted formats: just open your doors. Stop saying on stages that, ‘you know where to find us, our door is always open, these are the people to talk to’. Respect the community of creatives whose ideas are good enough and original enough for Europe, formats that travel across the Nordics and into Benelux and around Germany. Or perhaps we internationals need to stop seeing the UK as the pinnacle – a Dutch commission is an innovative thing, a Finnish commission is wonderful, a German commission is huge.