A TV format describes the overall concept, premise and branding of a copyrighted television program.
The format is licensed by TV networks, so that they may produce a version of the show tailored to their nationality and audience. Formats are a major part of the international television market. Format purchasing is popular with broadcasters, due principally to:
Leading companies that handle the creation and sales of programming formats include Endemol and FremantleMedia.
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The most common type of format are those in the television genre of game shows, many of which are remade in multiple markets with local contestants. Recent examples include Survivor, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, Pop Idol and Big Brother that have all proved successful worldwide.
Particular models in the genre of sitcoms are often sold as formats, enabling broadcasters to adapt them to the perceived tastes of their own audience. An example is The Office, a BBC sitcom which got adapted as the The Uffice US, Le Bureau in France, Stromberg in Germany, La Job in Quebec and La Ofis in Chile.
While TV formats are a form of intellectual property (IP) which are regularly bought and sold by TV producers, distribution company and broadcasters, they are very hard to protect in law. As a result, copy-cat formats are sometimes created, which seek to duplicate the success of an original format without paying the rights-holder of the original format.
Television formats such as The X-Factor or Britain's Got Talent are extremely popular with audiences. Over the last decade, the UK has emerged as the world's major format developer, accounting for between 20-50% of all format hours broadcast annually worldwide. Also, Who Wants To Be a Millionaire was recreated in 108 territories while local versions of Idols have aired (over 129 series) in 42 territories receiving about three [[billion] votes, most notable being American Idol.
Yet, there is no such thing as a television format right under copyright law. Any television producer is free to develop game, reality and talent shows that are based on similar ideas. "If no such rights exist, then the commercial rate for the format, at least from a legal point of view, is zero."[1][2]
Researchers from Bournemouth University (Prof. Martin Kretschmer, Dr Sukhpreet Singh and Jonathan Wardle) in UK studied the exploitation of television formats under an ESRC (UK) grant. The study created a database of 59 reported format disputes between 1988 (when the issue of TV format rights first surfaced in the landmark legal case of Green v Broadcasting Corporation of New Zealand) and 2008.[3]
The Format Recognition and Protection Association (FRAPA) aims to protect rights to formats and lobbies for legal protection.
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