Television Across Asia

TV Industries, Programme Formats and Globalisation

Michael Keane, Albert Moran

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781134392599
• Subtopic: Asian History
• Index: History

This book explores the trade in television program formats, which is a crucially important ingredient in the globalisation of culture, in Asia. It examines how much traffic there is in program formats, the principal direction of flow of such traffic, and the economic and cultural significance of this trade for the territories involved, and for the region as a whole. It shows how new technology, deregulation, privatisation and economic recession have greatly intensified competition between broadcasters in Asia, as in other parts of the world, and discusses how this in turn has multiplied the incidence of television format remakes, with some countries developing dedicated format companies, and others becoming net importers and adapters of formats.

1 Television formats in the world/
the world of television formats

Albert Moran

From Big Brother is watching to watching Big Brother

In 1949 British author George Orwell published Nineteen Eighty-Four, a novel that told of a future totalitarian society. Like his Animal Farm that had appeared 4 years earlier, the new book marked Orwell’s continued disenchantment with political regimes based on ideological foundations that attempted to govern all aspects of the private and public lives of its citizens. To symbolize the constant surveillance of his fictional citizens of the future Orwell coined the catchphrase ‘Big Brother is Watching’. Orwell himself had no opportunity of seeing whether his fictions would come to pass, dying as he did in 1950. The year 1984 came and went, and on the surface at least the novel’s prophecies had not eventuated. Instead, in 1999, a half-century after the novel’s appearance, Big Brother did happen, although in circumstances very different to those imagined by Orwell. In an ironic twist the Dutch programme Big Brother offered television viewers the opportunity to watch the activities of a small group of young people who had deliberately made themselves available to the constant surveillance of a battery of cameras and microphones. The success of the first version of the programme prompted the remaking of the format in over thirty different national settings across the world as television producers and broadcasters, as well as audiences, fell under its spell.

Taking Big Brother as index, there is no doubt that the past half-century has seen dramatic and significant changes in the economic, social and political lives of populations. Starting with the Cold War aftermath of the Second World War followed by the two international oil crises of the 1970s, there has occurred a series of profound political and economic events that have helped bring about a different world order in the recent present from that which existed at the time of Nineteen Eighty-Four’s publication. Among the most public signs of this change have been the rise of unemployment in the advanced economies of the West and inflation in the Third World, the steady dissolution of the social welfare state and the advent of trade liberalization, the formation of new international trading blocs and the end of the Cold War (Galtung 1993). War and physical disasters, along with changing labour markets and tourism have led to an ever-increasing mobility of populations both within and between nation states (Castles and Miller 1993). At the cultural level there have been equally significant albeit less visible developments, not least in the areas of transportation and communications, that are profoundly changing populations’ relationships with space and time. Various explanations have been offered as a means of making sense of this change, most notably the notion of globalization.

Economic globalization

In the past, terms such as ‘modernity’ or ‘transnationalization’ were preferred labels for summarizing and understanding such changes; now ‘globalization’ has become the favourite epithet, one of the most persistent buzzwords of recent times. Simply put, the idea of globalization is the claim that a worldwide system of economic, cultural and political interdependence has come into being or is in the process of forming. Older systems that organized the distribution of political, economic, and cultural power and generally existed on a national basis are being superseded by a more international set of relations whose reach is well nigh universal (cf. Lash and Urry 1987). The nation-state is withering away or is already dead (cf. Horsman and Marshall 1994). Proponents of an economic globalization thesis assert that a fundamental economic re-ordering is at work which is determining this change: the change is a structural one involving not an evolution but a profound break with the international economic system of the past, a transformation where a global economy, a global culture and a world without frontiers is coming into being. Drawing on signs ranging from the deregulation of the international currency market and the banking industry to the advent of the Internet, advocates of this view assert that more and more of the internal economic management of nation-states is beyond the control of agencies such as national governments. Transnational corporations, often with incomes that surpass those of nation-states, the capacity to locate wherever market advantage dictates and an international reach that make them accountable to no national government, are the principal economic actors on this global stage (cf. Aksoy and Robins 1992). The role of national governments is akin to that of local or municipal authorities, providing the infrastructure and public goods that the transnational corporations need at the lowest possible cost (Julius 1990).

However, such a claim is exaggerated and premature to say the least (cf. Held 1989; Dahrendorf 1990). Although the globalization thesis is extremely fashionable, the nation-state is more persistent and its role continues to be more pivotally important, both internationally and domestically, than the globalists would have one believe. Nevertheless, the world certainly has changed since the 1960s, so that if we do not live in a global- ized economy we at least inhabit a highly internationalized one in which most companies trade from their bases within distinct national economies.

National policies continue to be necessary; indeed they are indispensable in order to preserve the distinct styles and strengths of a national economic base and the companies that trade from it. A world economy with a high and growing degree of international trade and investment is not necessarily a globalized economy: rather, nation-states, and forms of international regulation created and sustained by these entities, continue to have a fundamental role in providing economic governance (Hirst and Thompson 1995: 177–185).

Cultural homogenization

Often accompanying the argument of economic globalization is the claim of the advent of an increasingly universal culture driven by the globalization of the media of mass communications. Champions of this view adopt either a negative or a positive perspective on the brave new world they see as coming into being. Theorists of the media as early as Guback (1969) and as recent as Miller et al. (2001) have suggested that the increasing tendency for television programmes and films from the advanced countries of the West, especially the USA, to dominate national audio-visual systems is leading to the breakdown of indigenous or national cultures. Whereas the tone here is one of profound regret and mourning, the supplanting of national culture by a global culture is a cause for celebration in the writings of a post-modernist tradition that runs from McLuhan (1962) to Appadurai (1990). According to both branches of the thesis, national culture is more and more eclipsed by a consumer culture that is rapidly becoming worldwide. Cultural difference is disappearing and populations everywhere are more and more subject to the same global culture, transmitted by what is now seen to be a highly internationalized media system.

But yet again, this view seems overstated and precipitous. First, it ignores the historical dimensions of the internationalization of communications. The origins of this linkage lie well before the early twentieth century and the advent of Hollywood, and even the nineteenth-century development of the international submarine telegraphic cables and news agencies. Instead, its seed can be found in such events as the sixteenth century establishment of an international postal system and even the fifteenth-century organization of a transnational book publishing industry in Western Europe.

Equally, to use the apparent global distribution of films, television programmes, music, and other cultural goods and practices as evidence for increasing cultural homogeneity is simply to collapse important differences between marketing mechanisms on the one hand and social effects on the other. Additionally, this marketing mechanism is nowhere near as universal in its reach as proponents of the cultural globalization argument would have us believe. Instead, in the case of film and television, the cultural artefacts in question would at most only reach approximately one-third of the people living on Earth, with a heavy bias towards the OECD and G7 nations (Ferguson 1993: 73). There is also skewed access due to population size, domestic wealth and geography, as well as structured inequality of access due to cultural backgrounds of caste, class or party, on ethnic cultures defended by bloodshed or kinship traditions linked to religious proscriptions (Ferguson 1993: 72).

Most importantly for the research summarized in this book, the fact remains that international trade in television programmes, while impressive in terms of its value, is nevertheless dwarfed by the overall volume of television programmes that only receive domestic circulation. Most of the world’s television programmes are produced and broadcast in national television systems and do not receive international distribution. Noting that research on the global flow of television programmes frequently fails to accord an integral place to ‘local and regional’ production and the ‘indi-genizing’ of international product within the resulting market mix, O’Regan has suggested that the amount spent on local production is 29 times greater than that spent in international audio-visual exchange (O’Regan 1992: 87). Such an observation gives pause to the claims of cultural globalists and underlines the key role undertaken by national producers and audiences in localizing television. This same axiom is further confirmed from another quarter. A series of national researchers working independently in countries such as Australia, Brazil, Germany and Quebec have shown that where national audiences have a choice they usually prefer television programmes produced nationally or in the national language as against imported programmes (Becker and Shoen-beck 1989; de la Garde 1994; Ferguson 1993; Katz and Wedell 1977; Larsen 1990; Moran 1985; and Silj 1988; 1992).

National television systems

The particular subject of this book, however, is television across Asia and the Pacific: the extent to which it is globalizing and regionalizing on the one hand, and the degree to which it is national on the other. Several mechanisms work alone and in concert to create and sustain world television (including that of Asia) as a series of mostly national systems. First, the fact is that the present international system of wire and wireless communication, including television broadcasting, is based not on the recent activities of transnational media corporations but rather on agreements reached between nation-states in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Nowell-Smith 1991). This bulwark has been further strengthened by decisions taken by nation-states that affect such matters as television technology and content. National television systems inevitably produce cultural effects. Subjecting the population within a given territory to the same type of service helps to produce notions of equality and commonality. Moreover, instituting expectation of rhythms of service further ties national populations to the same flow of content. This enculturation promotes a sense of community among a particular group of viewers within a national territory. As evidenced in many of the examples in this book, such communities are further secured by the deployment of the national language or languages.

Yet another crucial mechanism that helps consolidate the local character of a national television system is domestic production. This can be generated from three different sources: locally originated concepts and projects, programme ideas that serve co-production arrangements, and those based on format adaptations. Government policies and media scholarship have frequently had much to say about the first two mechanisms, but little attention has been given to the subject of programme formats and their national adaptation, the point where the global meets the local.

It is to this that we now turn.

What is a format?

How do we define a television programme format? The term ‘format’ had its origin in the printing industry where it specifies a particular page size. First in radio, and then in television, the term was intimately linked to the principal of serial programme production. A format can be used as the basis of a new programme, the programme manifesting as a series of episodes that are sufficiently similar to seem like instalments of the same programme and sufficiently distinct to register as new and different. Similarly, behind industrial/legal moves to protect formats lies a complementary notion that formats are generative or organizational. Thus from one point of view a television format is that set of invariable elements in a programme out of which the variable elements of an individual episode are produced. Equally, a format can be seen as a means of organizing individual episodes. As a producer once put it: ‘the crust is the same from week to week but the filling changes.’

Although international television industries talk confidently of the format as a single object, it is in fact a complex entity that typically manifests in a series of overlapping but separate forms. These can be summarized as follows. First there is the paper format: a five or six page summary of the main ingredients of the programme and how these ingredients will combine. Second, the ‘bible’: an extensive and detailed document, often running to several hundred pages of printed information, drawings, graphics, studio plans, photographs and so on, that provides the full detail and advice summarized in the paper format. A package of printed information about the scheduling, target audience, ratings and audience demographics based on broadcast history in other television markets constitutes another form of the format, although this material may be lodged in the bible. Fourth, scripts derived from earlier productions of the programme are also useful vehicles for deriving knowledge of the format. Other parallel sources can include off-air tapes of previous versions of the programme, inserts of film footage, computer software and graphics. Finally, the format can also arrive in human form when a consultancy service is provided to new producers by the company owning the format.

However, in a real sense, to ask the question ‘What is a format?’ is to ask the wrong kind of question. Such a question implies that a format has some core or essence. As the previous paragraph suggests, ‘format’ is a loose term that covers a range of items that may be included in a format licensing agreement. The term has meaning not so much because of what it is but because of what it permits or facilitates. A format is an economic and cultural technology of exchange that has meaning not because of a principle but because of a function or effect.

Why adapt a format? The producer’s view

As we have already hinted, format trade is meaningful because it helps to organize and regulate the exchange of programme ideas between programme producers across time and space. In the past in the West, but also in the present in many other places including the People’s Republic of China and India, the exchange of production ideas has often been ad hoc. Plagiarism has been, and continues to be rife, although as part of a general international formalization of trade in formats, represented by the formation of the Formats Recognition and Protection Association (FRAPA) in 2000, a regular licence fee system has emerged. Meantime, the international multiplication of television channels available within national boundaries has heightened the need for producers to ensure programming success.

In examining the particular significance of formats from the point of view of national television producers we can note constraints relating to programme imports on the one hand and national programme productions on the other. Why be involved in the cost of a format adaptation when it is cheaper to import a finished programme? The simple answer is that so far as local populations are concerned, locally produced programmes, whether based on formats or not, are likely to attract larger audiences than imported programmes. Parallel logic then suggests that local broadcasters will prefer a format adapted programme over an original concept. An original concept is exactly that: untried, untested and therefore offering a broadcaster little in the way of insurance against possible ratings failure. By contrast, formats are almost invariably based on programmes that were successful in other national territories and are therefore likely to repeat this success in the new territory.

Of course, there remains the question: why pay a licence fee? Unauthorized infringement may lead to costly legal action. In addition, it may damage a producer’s business reputation and may in the future lead other format owners to shun that producer. But as the chapters on industries such as those of the People’s Republic of China and India illustrate, this consideration is not likely to prey on the mind of a local producer in some of the more remote cities, so piracy is often rife in such places. However, the maintenance of one’s international business reputation is likely to be important to producers in the metropolitan centres, so there producers tend to abide by the rules. But beyond these contingent issues, the more positive reason why licence fees are paid is that payment gives complete access to the format’s previous success in another national territory. However – and this is an important point – in licensing a format, a producer is allowed a good deal of flexibility so far as the choice and arrangement of elements in the adaptation are concerned. There is a recognition that the original set of ingredients and their organization may have to be varied in relation to aspects in the new television setting such as production resources, channel image, and buyer preference. The original formula does not have to be slavishly imitated but rather serves as a general framework or guide within which it is possible to introduce various changes. Significantly, under standard format licensing agreements, the variations to a television format developed through adaptation become a further part of the format, with ownership vested in the original owner. Clearly under this type of permitted variation there is no veneration of originality; rather the format is seen as a loose and expanding set of programme possibilities. There is on the part of the owner the overriding imperative to gain maximum commercial advantage from everything generated from the initial set of elements. In turn, the new elements introduced as variations in the adaptation will be as available as the original should a further adaptation of the programme be required.

Finally, as part of this industry view of format adaptation, it is worth mentioning the legal situation regarding this kind of commercial property. The attempt to secure legal protection for formats has been sought through three instruments: copyright, breach of confidence and passing off. Copyright appears to be the most important of the three. However, the scope of protection under copyright legislation in various jurisdictions is not large. An apparently new format can be devised by changing characters or other elements in an existing format. In addition, the combination of elements may be protected by copyright but such protection exists in limited degree for the individual elements. And while excessive imitations can be fought with this legislation, the plagiarist who makes minimal changes is likely to succeed. Often the strength of the format lies in the idea t...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Tables
• Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• 1. Television Formats In the World/The World of Television Formats
• 2. Asia: New Growth Areas
• 3. Feeling Glocal: Japan In the Global Television Format Business
• 4. A Local Mode of Programme Adaptation: South Korea In the Global Television Format Business
• 5. Cloning, Adaptation, Import and Originality: Taiwan In the Global Television Format Business
• 6. Coping, Cloning and Copying: Hong Kong In the Global Television Format Business
• 7. A Revolution In Television and a Great Leap Forward for Innovation?: China In the Global Television Format Business
• 8. Let the Contests Begin! ‘ Singapore Slings’ Into Action: Singapore In the Global Television Format Business
• 9. Copied from Without and Cloned from Within: India In the Global Television Format Business
• 10. Closing the Creativity Gap – Renting Intellectual Capital In the Name of Local Content: Indonesia In the Global Television Format Business
• 11. Reformatting the Format: Philippines In the Global Television Format Business
• 12. Distantly European?: Australia In the Global Television Format Business
• 13. An Export/Import Industry: New Zealand In the Global Television Format Business
• 14. Joining the Circle
• Bibliography