TV Format Mogul

This is the first English language book to deal with the development of the TV format business. It is a definitive history of programme franchising. It is written by Australia's foremost ethnographer and historian of television. It shows how production adaptation and remaking became the billion-dollar business it is today through the lens of Australian producer Reg Grundy.

Since the late 1990s, when broadcasters began adapting such television shows as Big Brother, Survivor, and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? for markets around the world, the global television industry has been struggling to get to grips with the prevalence of programme franchising across international borders. The practice of cultural and commercial cloning from one place to another, and one time to another, has been happening since the early days of broadcasting. But how did program adaptation and remaking get underway and become the billion-dollar business it is today?

In TV Format Mogul, Albert Moran traces the history of this phenomenon through the lens of Australian producer Reg Grundy's transnational career. Beginning in the late 1950s, Grundy brought non-Australian shows to Australian audiences, becoming the first person to take local productions to an overseas market. By following Grundy's career, Moran shows how adaptation and remaking became the billion-dollar business they are today.