Format Lab
The Shared Script: Why Nobody Watched The Neighbourhood
Why The Neighbourhood failed before it aired, and how the Shared Script Test exposes whether a reality format rests on lived experience or nostalgia.
Format Lab
Teardowns of unscripted formats, mechanics and development choices. What works, what breaks, what travels, and what developers can learn.
Format Lab
The Three Ways a TV Format Dies: Failure Models Every Developer Should Know
Why do TV formats fail? Three failure models, from The Neighbourhood to Limitless Win to Cash Cab, and a diagnostic checklist for format developers.
Format Lab
Format Lab: The Traitors, Teardown #1
The Traitors stripped to its six core mechanics. A format developer's teardown showing which parts of the engine you can reuse, and how to avoid a clone.
Format Lab
ITV Chase Around The World a format extension, or hanging off the success of BBC's Race Across the World?
The Chase Around The World borrows brand recognition from The Chase and format DNA from Race Across the World. Is that clever risk-managed development, or a rip-off? A format development breakdown.
Format Lab
Are We Still Developing Formats for an Industry That No Longer Exists?
There is a quiet problem in unscripted development. We talk about new ideas, new platforms, new buyers, new technology and new audience behaviour. Then we often develop as if the old system still controls everything. The old system had a familiar shape. You found an idea, shaped it into a
Format Lab
What is a Format NOW?
We need to talk about what a "format" is now, in this changed world of making stuff for people to watch.