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Television formats, such as Big Brother, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, Pop Idol or Strictly Come Dancing, are fast growing programme types in a multi-channel media environment, and a major export of the UK creative industries. However, since a series of court decisions (Green v Broadcasting Corporation of New Zealand, 1988; Norowzian v Arks, 1998-2000) it is widely accepted that there is no such thing as a television format right under copyright law. This has created a dilemma for programme developers and programme buyers: Why pay for a format if you can re-create it for free?

This project explores the use of legal (eg trade marks, know-how licences) and non-legal strategies (eg reputation networks, branding) in the exploitation of television formats, in particular in relation to the major emerging markets (such as Eastern Europe, India and China).

The research will include:

1. an interview based study of media buyers and sellers in the context of international trade fairs; 
2. a case study of the exploitation of three successful television formats developed by FremantleMedia, one of the leading UK independent television producers, and co-sponsor of the project.

 A (web based) best practice tool will be the key outcome.

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