The British are coming! Or maybe we should say their entertainment franchises are. This week it was announced that the iconic BBC studios are headhunting for an LA-based executive to expand and manage a more US-focused market for unscripted formats, something the BBC has been very successful with over the last decade. Brandon Blake, entertainment lawyer at Blake & Wang P.A, has more.
Dancing With The Stars
The BBC’s presence in LA is not new, of course, with Valerie Bruce’s BBC Studios LA Productions already acting as a US-based division for them. They’ve been the powerhouse behind ABC’s Dancing with the Stars and Nat Geo’s Life Below Zero. However, the addition of a new Senior Vice President to the mix is interesting indeed. We already know that last year was a record growth year for them.
The new position’s focus will be on lifestyle, gameshow, factual, and unscripted entertainment shows. It’s also intended to better unite the BBC Studio’s U.K headquarters with the LA branch, looking to develop further properties for the US market specifically. To date, most have been ‘imports’ of already successful British shows.
Unscripted Boom
Unscripted content has been a growth market for a while now, and the US-side arm of the BBC benefited greatly from this over 2020 and 2021. No doubt, the new position also wants to bring in increased returns from BBC Studios, given that their license fee was frozen for the next two years. They’re targeting a 30% increase in returns over the five year period, a plan that will need consistent, and sellable, unscripted formats if it’s to be reached.
It will be interesting to see how this expansion of the BBC’s presence in the US unscripted market develops further once the position is filled- and what results from the increased local-focused content production, too. We will be watching with interest.
