Japan’s Fuji Television Network is prospecting for more international unscripted entertainment partnerships and its next hit global format.

 

Fresh on the heels of its latest international unscripted format collaboration, social experiment reality format The Swap Project, co-developed with The Phil Gurin Company (TGC), Fuji Television Network’s head of format sales Ryuji Komiya says the broadcaster is looking to build more such global alliances for its unscripted entertainment slate.

Locally developed unscripted entertainment remains an established content driver across the country’s big domestic networks, with entertainment formats crucial in helping Fuji TV achieve its content mission, says Komiya. “We focus on creating new content suitable for the whole family and that appeals to people aged 13- to-49, who we call the ‘core target’,” he says.

“The key to Fuji TV’s success is to create formats that are very popular in Japan, and more importantly, that can also be a global hit,” he says. “But right now there’s a gap between what the Japanese audience wants and what the Western buyers seek when they look for Japanese formats, which is a challenge.”

Foreign markets are no strangers to Japanese entertainment formats, with Fuji TV enjoying a long track record worldwide for popular inhouse-made formats, notably Iron Chef and Hole in the Wall, the latter distributed by Fremantle, and Total Blackout, a coproduction with Fremantle in 2010.

Like elsewhere, the influx of global streamers like Netflix and Amazon Prime has also disrupted the Japanese television industry, but the focus has so far been mainly in the scripted sphere, with a few notable exceptions – including Japanese comedy format Documental, picked up and adapted as LOL on Amazon Prime Video in a range of territories – leaving the door wide open to opportunities for the right unscripted format partnerships.

As Komiya notes: “Fuji TV faces increasing competition from online platforms and changing consumer preferences. But Fuji TV still remains strong within its core audiences, which are mainly composed of young and urban viewers, who are attracted by the network’s reputation for producing trendy and edgy programmes.”

On the digital front, Fuji TV’s online streaming service FOD (Fuji TV On Demand) is increasingly important to attracting younger viewers, notes Komiya. The service provides access to all of Fuji TV’s live shows and archive programmes, as well as original and exclusive content.

 “By launching these online streaming services, Fuji TV is not only aiming to retain its existing audience, but also to attract new and younger viewers who are more likely to consume media online than on traditional TV. Moreover, by expanding its digital content portfolio, Fuji TV is also diversifying its revenue streams and creating new opportunities for advertising and sponsorship,” Komiya says.

Fuji TV’s linear schedule offers a broad range of unscripted programmes, from quizshows, to educational comedy programmes, factual entertainment shows, music, comedy competition and the like, with a core focus on producing “trendy and edgy programmes” that appeal to young viewers. Key days and linear slots are Saturday and Sunday in primetime, and most of Fuji TV unscripted originals are intended for both a linear and online presence.

A recent success on this front, says Komiya, is the format The New Key (Atarashi Kagi), which first launched in 2021. One of the show’s segments is called VS School – The Ultimate Hide and Seek. Set in a high school, it sees celebrities disguise themselves as real life objects, such as a piano or a planter, and students have to find them within a time limit to win a prize.

Just premiered is music format called Music Generation, targeting a broad family audience. Launched as a weekly show on Thursdays at 19.00, the hour-long format explores the music across several generations – from the 70s to the 90s; the 90s to 2000s; and from 2010 to the 2020s, where celebrities from each generation talk about the musical genres and themes from their era. Before becoming a weekly programme the format was tested as a special in a run of 13 episodes.

At the other end of the scale is 20-year-old hit reality gameshow Run for Money, which is still very popular and remains an example of the type of format that “aligns with Fuji TV’s current content vision,” says Komiya. The show involves contestants attempting to avoid getting caught by hunters within a time-limit, while undertaking a range of tasks and missions to win a cash prize.

Unscripted entertainment formats can last indefinitely if their ratings are good, unlike Japan’s local scripted series, which typically run for one season of 10 or 11 episodes over a three-month period and tend not to return for new seasons even if they generate high ratings, says Komiya. Japan’s unscripted also differ from those in the West, which tend to run for a set number of episodes per season, he adds.

“If the programme is a hit format it can run for 10 or 20 years, so typically we do not have new unscripted entertainment formats every year,” he explains, noting Fuji TV has on average between two and four primetime formats, including pilots annually.

Another popular format is weekly factual entertainment family show Let Me Tell Your Fortune, in which modern fortune-tellers’ take to the streets to engage with ordinary members of the public, exploring fortune-telling and mystery stories across a range of subjects from hot topics, family matters or romance. The stories told are often emotional and move people to tears, or reveal the past lives of celebrities and predict their future, says Komiya.

Most of Fuji TV’s unscripted formats are developed and produced inhouse by its production team, but it sometimes also works with external production companies, says Komiya.

Among Fuji TV’s more recent international unscripted collaborations, is a content creation alliance struck with The Story Lab in 2021 to codevelop unscripted IP for the global market. The collaboration led to The Spin, a physical gameshow format with a twist, coproduced with UK prodco Rumpus Media. The format first launched on Fuji TV in March 2021 before being made available internationally later that year.

Meanwhile, this year saw the launch of social experiment reality format The Swap Project. So far, the show launched as a single 60-minute format on Fuji TV this February, the format has been co-developed with TGC, under an ongoing creative partnership between the two parties. It follows an East-meets-West, fish-out-of-water life-exchange concept and sees two people from different parts of the world but with similar occupations swap lives for a week. As well as swapping jobs, they take on each other’s family duties, which also leads to cultural norms and divides as well as commonalities. “The next episode is still to be confirmed, so we are thinking of it as a seasonal series rather than daily or weekly episodes,” says Komiya.

TGC and Fuji TV share distribution rights to the format, which was unveiled at MipTV earlier this month. Fuji TV’s distribution arm Fuji Creative Corp is handling Asia and TGC has rest of the world rights to the show.

Commenting on Fuji TV’s current priorities and needs, Komiya says budgets are also a factor: “Our main goal is to create formats that can make money both at home and abroad. We need a distinctive format that is viable in production, unlike in the past when we had more budget. As we face more competitors, TV stations have to spend their production budgets smartly.”

Komiya adds: “We collaborate with external partners to coproduce new formats. We can also co-develop our old title formats, of which we have about 100, to suit their local market.”

However, it’s still early days when it comes to the use of AI in shows. “Japan is a bit behind in the use of AI in general. We’re starting to get acquainted with it right now, so therefore we are not using AI for content creation now,” says Komiya.

One area Fuji TV won’t be exploring, however, when it comes to international partnerships is on-screen talent-driven shows. “From a global business perspective, we don’t want programmes that focus on talent. This is because in the past few years we’ve had many talent-focused programmes, such as talkshows with comedians, which are hard to sell as formats. It’s a very tricky balance, because [local] talent-focused programmes tend to get good ratings but globally are hard to sell.”

Komiya is highly optimistic about Fuji TV’s future global market prospects. “As our production team doesn’t specialise in [a single] genre of format, we believe there are infinite opportunities as the global format trend changes every year. The main challenge is finding the right partner to produce these formats and create the series with, as language is always a challenge when coproducing with international partners.”

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Japan’s Fuji Television Network is prospecting for more international unscripted entertainment partnerships and its next hit global format.

 

Fresh on the heels of its latest international unscripted format collaboration, social experiment reality format The Swap Project, co-developed with The Phil Gurin Company (TGC), Fuji Television Network’s head of format sales Ryuji Komiya says the broadcaster is looking to build more such global alliances for its unscripted entertainment slate.

Locally developed unscripted entertainment remains an established content driver across the country’s big domestic networks, with entertainment formats crucial in helping Fuji TV achieve its content mission, says Komiya. “We focus on creating new content suitable for the whole family and that appeals to people aged 13- to-49, who we call the ‘core target’,” he says.

“The key to Fuji TV’s success is to create formats that are very popular in Japan, and more importantly, that can also be a global hit,” he says. “But right now there’s a gap between what the Japanese audience wants and what the Western buyers seek when they look for Japanese formats, which is a challenge.”

Foreign markets are no strangers to Japanese entertainment formats, with Fuji TV enjoying a long track record worldwide for popular inhouse-made formats, notably Iron Chef and Hole in the Wall, the latter distributed by Fremantle, and Total Blackout, a coproduction with Fremantle in 2010.

Like elsewhere, the influx of global streamers like Netflix and Amazon Prime has also disrupted the Japanese television industry, but the focus has so far been mainly in the scripted sphere, with a few notable exceptions – including Japanese comedy format Documental, picked up and adapted as LOL on Amazon Prime Video in a range of territories – leaving the door wide open to opportunities for the right unscripted format partnerships.

As Komiya notes: “Fuji TV faces increasing competition from online platforms and changing consumer preferences. But Fuji TV still remains strong within its core audiences, which are mainly composed of young and urban viewers, who are attracted by the network’s reputation for producing trendy and edgy programmes.”

On the digital front, Fuji TV’s online streaming service FOD (Fuji TV On Demand) is increasingly important to attracting younger viewers, notes Komiya. The service provides access to all of Fuji TV’s live shows and archive programmes, as well as original and exclusive content.

 “By launching these online streaming services, Fuji TV is not only aiming to retain its existing audience, but also to attract new and younger viewers who are more likely to consume media online than on traditional TV. Moreover, by expanding its digital content portfolio, Fuji TV is also diversifying its revenue streams and creating new opportunities for advertising and sponsorship,” Komiya says.

Fuji TV’s linear schedule offers a broad range of unscripted programmes, from quizshows, to educational comedy programmes, factual entertainment shows, music, comedy competition and the like, with a core focus on producing “trendy and edgy programmes” that appeal to young viewers. Key days and linear slots are Saturday and Sunday in primetime, and most of Fuji TV unscripted originals are intended for both a linear and online presence.

A recent success on this front, says Komiya, is the format The New Key (Atarashi Kagi), which first launched in 2021. One of the show’s segments is called VS School – The Ultimate Hide and Seek. Set in a high school, it sees celebrities disguise themselves as real life objects, such as a piano or a planter, and students have to find them within a time limit to win a prize.

Just premiered is music format called Music Generation, targeting a broad family audience. Launched as a weekly show on Thursdays at 19.00, the hour-long format explores the music across several generations – from the 70s to the 90s; the 90s to 2000s; and from 2010 to the 2020s, where celebrities from each generation talk about the musical genres and themes from their era. Before becoming a weekly programme the format was tested as a special in a run of 13 episodes.

At the other end of the scale is 20-year-old hit reality gameshow Run for Money, which is still very popular and remains an example of the type of format that “aligns with Fuji TV’s current content vision,” says Komiya. The show involves contestants attempting to avoid getting caught by hunters within a time-limit, while undertaking a range of tasks and missions to win a cash prize.

Unscripted entertainment formats can last indefinitely if their ratings are good, unlike Japan’s local scripted series, which typically run for one season of 10 or 11 episodes over a three-month period and tend not to return for new seasons even if they generate high ratings, says Komiya. Japan’s unscripted also differ from those in the West, which tend to run for a set number of episodes per season, he adds.

“If the programme is a hit format it can run for 10 or 20 years, so typically we do not have new unscripted entertainment formats every year,” he explains, noting Fuji TV has on average between two and four primetime formats, including pilots annually.

Another popular format is weekly factual entertainment family show Let Me Tell Your Fortune, in which modern fortune-tellers’ take to the streets to engage with ordinary members of the public, exploring fortune-telling and mystery stories across a range of subjects from hot topics, family matters or romance. The stories told are often emotional and move people to tears, or reveal the past lives of celebrities and predict their future, says Komiya.

Most of Fuji TV’s unscripted formats are developed and produced inhouse by its production team, but it sometimes also works with external production companies, says Komiya.

Among Fuji TV’s more recent international unscripted collaborations, is a content creation alliance struck with The Story Lab in 2021 to codevelop unscripted IP for the global market. The collaboration led to The Spin, a physical gameshow format with a twist, coproduced with UK prodco Rumpus Media. The format first launched on Fuji TV in March 2021 before being made available internationally later that year.

Meanwhile, this year saw the launch of social experiment reality format The Swap Project. So far, the show launched as a single 60-minute format on Fuji TV this February, the format has been co-developed with TGC, under an ongoing creative partnership between the two parties. It follows an East-meets-West, fish-out-of-water life-exchange concept and sees two people from different parts of the world but with similar occupations swap lives for a week. As well as swapping jobs, they take on each other’s family duties, which also leads to cultural norms and divides as well as commonalities. “The next episode is still to be confirmed, so we are thinking of it as a seasonal series rather than daily or weekly episodes,” says Komiya.

TGC and Fuji TV share distribution rights to the format, which was unveiled at MipTV earlier this month. Fuji TV’s distribution arm Fuji Creative Corp is handling Asia and TGC has rest of the world rights to the show.

Commenting on Fuji TV’s current priorities and needs, Komiya says budgets are also a factor: “Our main goal is to create formats that can make money both at home and abroad. We need a distinctive format that is viable in production, unlike in the past when we had more budget. As we face more competitors, TV stations have to spend their production budgets smartly.”

Komiya adds: “We collaborate with external partners to coproduce new formats. We can also co-develop our old title formats, of which we have about 100, to suit their local market.”

However, it’s still early days when it comes to the use of AI in shows. “Japan is a bit behind in the use of AI in general. We’re starting to get acquainted with it right now, so therefore we are not using AI for content creation now,” says Komiya.

One area Fuji TV won’t be exploring, however, when it comes to international partnerships is on-screen talent-driven shows. “From a global business perspective, we don’t want programmes that focus on talent. This is because in the past few years we’ve had many talent-focused programmes, such as talkshows with comedians, which are hard to sell as formats. It’s a very tricky balance, because [local] talent-focused programmes tend to get good ratings but globally are hard to sell.”

Komiya is highly optimistic about Fuji TV’s future global market prospects. “As our production team doesn’t specialise in [a single] genre of format, we believe there are infinite opportunities as the global format trend changes every year. The main challenge is finding the right partner to produce these formats and create the series with, as language is always a challenge when coproducing with international partners.”