BANFF – In the world according to Garvie – that’s Wayne Garvie, Director of Content and Production, BBC Worldwide – two truths are front and centre: producers and broadcasters can minimize the risk in content production and the potential for foreign sales, and reality TV is alive and well.
Garvie, who shared his content development and international sales wisdom with a packed hall at the Banff Worldwide Television Festival this morning, is a creator behind such format hits as Dancing with the Stars and Dragon’s Den.
He’s now in charge of working especially with UK and other independent producers to help them hone good ideas into successful productions that survive and find demand internationally. The basics of his approach are in a Top 10 list (actually top 11, as he points out) he first saw in the Journal of Marketing Research.
Predicting what the audience will want next and figuring out how to package and present your production or series – these are the cornerstones of the list. These ideas may seem self-evident, but are by-passed at warp speed more often than not by impetuous producers who pitch ideas they haven’t properly developed or tested.
The first item on the list is market opportunity, or determining the key areas for growth in audience demand. Garvie says audiences of BBC-1 wanted history programming but couldn’t see it there until a few years ago. Research showed many viewers are either “history doers” – the kind of people who visit castles or historical sites – or “Hello History” types attracted to the celebrity, glamour and compelling stories of the past. This knowledge in hand, BBC hired a filmmaker experienced in filling the demand and the unit has produced many successful programs.
The BBC was able to revive the Doctor Who franchise in the last few years because of a dedicated team and a persistent champion in writer Russell T. Davies, he says. Having a project champion is number two on the Top 10 list.
Next is ensuring productions respond to consumer needs. Garvie reckons that with The Apprentice, for instance, UK audiences would never have stood for having Donald Trump as host, he of the bad hair and un-subtle “You’re Fired!” technique. Garvie showed a clip from the British version, offering more footage of teams trying to win business on the streets of London and a more elegant, eloquent host.
List item number four is about marketing and launch effectiveness, which essentially means integrating marketing across all media at launch and far beyond, which Garvie says has worked for the Big Brother franchise, now “fogged in controversy.”
Jumping to item nine, Garvie cites the example of the ignition of the competitive ballroom dancing craze to prove the value of good launch timing. He says he was worried when a producer at BBC was determined to launch Strictly Come Dancing, the Dancing with the Stars format originator, in the summer and follow it with a second programming cycle that fall. The momentum built during the slow summer season flowed straight into the autumn and a phenomenon was born.
The remaining items focus on spending time and resources on thoroughly developing and promoting talent (i.e. chef Jamie Oliver, whose start on BBC transformed the cooking show), and testing, revising and improving the short- and long-term plans and objectives for all productions. The idea is to get it right, get it first and, hopefully, avoid a ratings bomb or seeing a series cancelled after episode two, which is all the time many series get to prove themselves.
Successful shows tend to sell much more easily in foreign markets so if Garvie can contribute to having producers get the development right, his sales are bound to go better.
Having discussed the success of many format/reality programs launched at the BBC, with both home audiences and foreign buyers, Garvie wasn’t surprised by a questioner wondering about the future of the reality genre.
“Reality will continue. It’s cost-effective and if it’s done right, it’s fantastic entertainment.”
He adds that it has the unique advantage of being PVR-proof. “It beats the PVR because it has to be watched live. You want to talk about it at work tomorrow,” rather than recording three episodes to see after your vacation.
