How to Make a living Creating Formats

Everyone in development already knows the commissioner isn't the only cheque in the room any more. That part isn't news.

What we don't say enough is where the risk lands once the money gets more complicated. Increasingly, it lands on you.

Look at how commissioning risk actually moves now. Channel 4's proof-of-concept fund pays indies to test a format before full commission. Good news on paper. But it also means the earliest, riskiest stage of development, the bit most likely to fail, now sits with the indie, not the broadcaster. You fund the failure risk. They fund the certainty.

Look at what happens when nobody protects the split. Ludo Studio kept Bluey's global licensing with BBC Studios, streaming with Disney, and domestic rights with the ABC, three separate deals instead of one. The ABC's reported $300 million shortfall wasn't bad luck. It was the cost of not controlling that split from day one.

Multi-partner financing, pre-sales, co-production, brand money, platform deals, looks like more options. It's really more parties deciding who absorbs the risk if the format underperforms. And the person who developed the idea is rarely in the room when that gets decided.

So the real question behind "who pays" isn't only who finances the format. It's who is quietly financing the gap right now, in deferred fees, unpaid development hours and personal risk, while everyone else works out the structure above their head.

If that's you, you're not a supplier on this project. You're an investor in it. Price yourself, and structure your deal, like one.

Jonathan

Written by a dyslexic producer, shaped for readability with AI, but the thinking is all mine.

#FormatDevelopment #CreatorEconomy #TVIndustry