What is a TV Format? How is it Written? The Secret to Writing a Successful TV Format

I have a great idea!

As workers in the television industry, being surrounded by people with ideas and to sometimes feel in the shadow of these “bright” ideas, I guess isn’t something I face alone, but rather face together with all my colleagues.

If it were up to them, these ideas that could change the form and flow of the entire world of TV industry are very susceptible to being stolen, and they are giving us the privilege by sharing these bright ideas with us just because “they trust only us”.

I am writing this article for every person in this field who has great ideas of their own, along with the concern of “how will I write a TV format?” At least learning about what television is not, what television won’t accept, and learning about what TV structure is, is a good way to satisfy curiosity and to take the first step to paving the path for good-willed productivity.

I work for a television channel, as a programs manager. I’m responsible for all non-scripted TV Formats. I have had many TV content meetings with people with the intent of helping them, which means that I have talked to dozens of people who have said “I have a great idea” Almost all of them were people who went knocking on TV managers’ doors only to get rejected. All of them came to me asking, “What am I doing wrong? Could you approach this matter from an industry standpoint?” My goal was to show them the way and to guide them through at least the beginning of their journeys.

However, having so many meetings drew my attention to one thing: the mistakes on people’s minds were in fact common mistakes. The dreams, the stories told and the way they were told were almost all identical and wrong- meaning anything that was wrong seemed to imitate each other among people. So I sat down and listed all of these mistakes and wanted to go over the misunderstood parts of the topic of “TV format”, as well as what mistakes to avoid while taking a form into television.

You are not going to be rich!

First of all I should mention that finding a TV format idea will not and cannot make you rich. Assuming your format is a good one, a format in this country will give you a weekly pay of approximately 1,000-1,500USD. Don’t assume that you will get five or ten or even twenty. For people to lean towards your format over the ones from other countries, yours has to be more affordable. In this case let’s say you’ve made a solid bargain. Your format has 1,500USD per episode. The 6,000USD a month earned from your format idea isn’t an amount high enough to make a person rich.

The most important part of a format sale is the person who does the distribution. If you make a deal with a distributor before you’ve taken your format to a TV channel and screened it, then this will hurt your chances with the TV channel. Because if a TV channel invests in a paper format and takes the risk of broadcasting it, then it will also want to take a part in the sales end of this format. I’m not talking about the volume of sales or the profit. TV channels will want to sell the format themselves, similar to BBC and other accomplished channels.

The best proof of this situation is TRT’s Turkish format case. A few years ago, TRT has initiated a format acquisition project with several production companies. TRT put several TV Formats idea into broadcasting on condition that being distributor of them and taking its own share from their international sales. And it also became a successful project. Thus, both local formats (papers) were produced and TRT took part in global arena of TV Formats, as distributor.

If you don’t have a successful distributor/or channel who has access to the global market or if your format doesn’t have universal content, your earnings within your country will not be enough to make you rich. For this reason you should always make sure to include content that could be broadcasted in the Philippines, United Arab Emirates, Mexico, Madagascar, and Germany synchronously while creating your format so that you could sell to 50 countries and join the club.,

You can’t create a TV format from paper!

You have written your format and have gotten a print-out. Now use the first page to make a paper boat. You can get instructions on how to make the boat using this link:

How to make a paper boat

Now take your boat to the seaside and put it in the water. Now watch and see if your boat can racevagainst the giant ships and barges in the water? I don’t think it can. I don’t even think that it canvcompare to the tiny fisherman’s boats. I even think that just a moment after you let it go, it will sink to the bottom.

Their ships will stay afloat because their ships are made from sturdy metal and have spent years in shipyards in preparation. Yours will not swim. This is why the bright ideas you bring in on paper don’t hold much value in the vast sea of television.

During the building of the studio of extraordinary ideas the world calls “paper format”, you don’t know what setbacks you will face, or how many times you will have to revamp the design, how faulty the software or graphics will be, or how many days it will take from start-up day to broadcasting. And that is why these formats only consist of “paper” for us.

Demo

But how do we deem these papers valuable? Since you have an idea and you believe in it, you should be able to prove it. You need to convince everyone that this idea, this dream can be brought to life. Don’t do it using paper but by using visuals instead. Visualize the following sentence: “That man will come out of there and fly and the audience will vote for him” Let’s see the man fly and the audience vote for him.

Now that is called a demo. A demo is your idea converted to a visual. It demands courage, risk-taking, and strong will. You make a deal with a studio, complete your casting, adjust your technical settings, put together some decorations even if it isn’t up to perfect standards and you shoot a demo. And people will believe you and evaluate your work by actually seeing it. During the decision-making process your courage will encourage the managers. In this case, in addition to paper, toner,and printing fees, you will need to finance an amount between 10,000 and 30,000 USD for a demo. But if you manage to succeed, at least you will have the power to say “I have this TV program”

It won’t get stolen, right?

Years and years ago, an acquaintance of mine brought me a television format idea. I showed him the ropes and helped him shoot a demo. I asked for support from studios and post-production companies I was familiar with. I was invested in this business. The person who got the demo and attempted to sell it to a television company however, was unsuccessful.

One night my phone rang and the person calling was that “acquaintance”. He was calling, bewildered, to ask me who I sold his format to. I didn’t get it. I told him to calm down and explain the situation again, slower. Apparently one of the TV companies he proposed his idea to, decided to make minimal changes and broadcast it as their own. I was happy for him. Even though it may have been stolen, the work he believed in and worked hard for was now on TV. This meant that he could create more valuable content.

I started research. Unfortunately, he hadn’t notarized his idea. Two years after this issue went to court, which was 21 months after the program had been cancelled due to lack of market shares on TV, the case was closed unsuccessfully. Yes, the program seemed to be a product of plagiarism, but it had enough differences for them to get away with.

On our own terms, we broadcasted a season made up of a format we created years ago. Close to 10 people called to say that the format was theirs, and 2 people actually sued us. The formats of the people who sent us to court were very similar. The situation was curious. Everyone was saying that the format was theirs while we were claiming it to be ours. All of them were basically the same because they all had the same starting-point. All of them were different because they worked in different ways.

I was a witness for one of the cases at court. I had examined the file of the man who sued us very closely. They were similar but not identical. Though I was very surprised at how similar they were because I had been right in the center of the creative process from beginning to end. And the other three files of the people who sued us were also very similar. No one knew each other. No one had interacted with each other before this encounter.

We can at least make this inference: We live in the 21st century, with the same access to the internet, using the same resources for our research. Soda tastes the same everywhere in the world. The information is the same. What we all read is the same. What we watch, where we get our news from, they’re all the same. Therefore, since our resources are identical, it isn’t that out of the ordinary that we end up with the same product.

From that day on, I ask for any TV format to be notarized before they present it to me, and made this a personal principle. I don’t evaluate projects that haven’t yet been notarized. The approval of a notary protects the rights of the owner of the format and in turn protects me from being a suspect. Even if it is an absurd idea, please just get it certified. If notary services cost too much you could still do it on FRAPA's web site for more affordable rates.

It’s Something Really “Different”

“One question will be asked. After the participant guesses the answer correctly a window will open. 3 people will be in that window. They will each choose a straw. The host will ask a question to the person who has the shortest straw. If he gets it right, then the question goes to the person with the longest straw. Before he can give an answer, the person who asked the question in the beginning…” Sometimes, a TV format is proposed in such a way that I have to ask a great number of questions and repetitions in order to fully understand it. Just think, as a manager in the TV industry, even if I don’t understand a thing that’s being said, how can you expect an audience to understand and enjoy the material?

There is a golden rule for your TV format projects. Can you describe your project to a CEO in one sentence? If the answer is yes, then your project is indeed a project. If your answer is no, you may need to reevaluate your project.

Let’s try to describe Who Wants To Be A Millionaire in one sentence:

“It is a quiz show where participants can win up to 1.000.000$ by giving correct answers and using lifelines guesses to questions”

This description makes Millionaire the world’s best format. If you can also describe your format in a single sentence, then yours is on the right track. If your pitch that includes all the bases to your format exceeds 2 lines then that is a bad signs.

The Best Format is a Simple Format

Be simple. Complicated and roundabout content is harder to appreciate. You don’t need to add supersonic and overly thought-out details to your format. Don’t drag it out. Don’t make it harder. Keep it simple. Make it easy to understand. Explain your format to someone over the age of 70 and ask them to explain it back to you. Evaluate how much of it was lost. All that was lost is all that is wrong with your format. To any 90 year-old, Millionaire is the show where “you get money for answering questions”

(I had intended to write an article. However, the more I wrote, I realized that this will be the length of a few columns. Let’s stop here for now. Based on your reactions we can shape the rest of it. Thank you for taking the time to read this.)