Thank you for downloading this program. In this edition of the bottom line, pop idol, master chef and big brother.

Evan Davis and guests discuss the international business of television formats.

Hello and welcome to the program. Now, how does a show like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,

go from airing on one channel in one medium-sized country to becoming a

global hit in multiple versions watched by hundreds of millions of people around the world,

or Big Brother, or Strictly Cump Dancing. All are blockbuster examples of the market in television

formats, a market that has exploded in the last 15 years.

Today, we'll hear about how it works, how to create a winning formula, the legal rangles and

the money being made. And to talk us through it, we have three very well-qualified guests,

and I'll take a few minutes to introduce you to each of them.

First of all, Charlie Parsons. He created the reality TV show Survivor, which has been sold to more than 70 territories.

He's chief executive of castaway television productions, which controls all aspects of the survivor business worldwide.

And I know you do other things as well,

Charlie, but just explain the show first off.

16 people on a desert island, they live in a beautiful tropical location, and they play a number of

games in order to survive. There's a sort of mixture of, I guess you call it, documentary, sort of

live reality soap and drama.

Now you struggled to sell it initially, because it actually has been a very successful format,

but it was a slow start.

It was a very slow start. I'm a producer by background training,

and I had this idea for doing this show, which didn't fit into any natural categories. It wasn't the traditional variety show. It wasn't the traditional documentary show, but it had elements of all of those.

So it was quite difficult to find a place for it. And in the end, I actually couldn't sell it

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