Shine Australia to water and weed its formats
Shine Australia will not shop around its formats with commercial broadcasters, but it will make sure they remain relevant in the market.
“It’s a case of watering, weeding, and continuing to keep [The Biggest Loser, MasterChef] relevant to the audience,” CEO Mark Fennessy told Encore.
The Biggest Loser will return to Shine at the end of the current series, with MasterChef to follow next year. The transition, said Fennessy, will be transparent in terms of the content, but contracts for upcoming editions of the shows are yet to be negotiated.
“In terms of quality, there should be no difference as we will maintain the quality of production values and editorial content.
“Some comments I made insinuated there would be a bidding war for The Biggest Loser, but it was taken out of context. Ten wants to retain the brand and support it, and they’ve been great partners. There has been interest elsewhere and we’ve had some discussions, but we’re not shopping the format around as such,” said Fennessy.
Fennessy left FremantleMedia Australia last November, to establish the local arm of Elisabeth Murdoch’s Shine group. According to Fennessy, Shine Australia will grow in its first year to employ about 20 people, but the company will “never be large on a staff head count basis”. Instead, Shine will work with a large pool of contractors, top creatives and executive producers on a project-by-project basis.
“We’re not trying to be the biggest business in town. As a start-up, we’ve got the opportunity to adopt a different business model for a rapidly changing media environment,” he said.
Shine will also expand its slate into the scripted space, with drama and comedy projects. According to Fennessy, comedy was a genre that “I was not able to exploit at FremantleMedia”, because it’s a specialised area that is difficult to do within a big organisation.
The company will work heavily on online content, without abandoning the core television business.
“PVRs are going to have a greater influence in viewing patterns and content is going to be created specifically for the net, but there’s still a healthy percentage of people watching TV in a traditional sense,” he explained. “It’s an exciting time to be in the content business because it’s not pure TV anymore. As a new company we can look at the places where we want to be as a content creator and supplier.”
Two new projects have been green-lit; Australian versions of The Family and Letters and Numbers. Both have been commissioned by SBS, and Fennessy anticipates that Shine will have a strong relationship with the public broadcasters.
“I’m a huge champion for public broadcasters. They play a vital role in the local production landscape, because they support original ideas. If they believe in a project they allow it to realise its potential and won’t take it off the air if it doesn’t do 1.4 million on the first night.
“As a smaller business, we’ll be knocking on their door more in the future. The ABC doesn’t take formats, so we will offer them original ideas. SBS is a mixture. And then the commercial networks are heavily driven by bankable formats,” said Fennessy.
The executive said there are no set financial targets imposed by the UK office, but they do follow the corporate strategy to stay relevant with the audience and offer what the market wants to buy.
“It’s about understanding future trends, and not being reactive to what the market is looking for today… if MasterChef is a hit, everybody wants a cooking show, but we want ideas that stand in their own merits and keep the creative process fertile.
“What we want is a balance between bankable formats and clever and relevant local ideas with local talent,” he finalised.
I have an idea that may be good for reality tv show and it is called Australia’s next photographer. why I say that is because there are alot of people who have an eye to take good photos the main idear is that each week someone has to go untill there is only 2 left the three judges are pros in the field each week you have a work shop on how to take photos that stand out then they will go out to take some photos then get judged on the photos that they took the bottom 2 will have to go back out to take photos then be judged on them. each week will be a harder. if you think this will work for you like it did for masterchef I would like to hear from you as I can tell you better over the phone my number is 0427575216
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