Sabrina Duguet on All3Media International’s Success Story in Asia

All3Media International’s Sabrina Duguet highlighted how the company is navigating the formats business across the Asia Pacific at the TV Formats Festival, with the company seeing traction on game shows, reality and scripted.

Duguet, executive VP for the Asia Pacific at All3Media International, took part in a keynote conversation that you can view here, discussing the Indian take on The Traitors and the keys to getting scripted formats underway across the region.

The streaming wave in Asia coincided with the gains in All3Media’s scripted footprint, Duguet said. “There was such a high demand for local production and local drama,” Duguet said. “But to be honest, not enough writers to fulfill that requirement. It was at a time we started having some fantastic scripted series in the catalog.”

Needs were different based on the territory, Duguet noted, based on local writers’ comfort with high-end drama. “For example, in India, they have an incredibly strong culture of drama, but they had a big movie culture and then the very long-running soaps of hundreds and hundreds of episodes. The demand was for six-, eight- and ten-parters. That’s a very different type of drama, a different type of writing, and being from the U.K., most of the drama we have fit exactly into that.”

Duguet drilled down into the journey in India, where a wealth of All3Media International dramas have been remade for leading streaming platforms. That expansion began with Liar at Voot. “It was the beginning of a great success story. We’ve built some fantastic relationships. We’ve had eight shows commissioned and another eight in development.”

Across the adaptation process, it’s key to “leave enough freedom to the people you’re working with and to the local adaptation. It’s [about] finding the right balance. We’ve got a fantastic team in London, a support team, and their job is to help the producers internationally from the beginning till the show is on air. It’s not just about getting the deal signed, but it’s really about supporting our partners as much as possible, trusting them and giving them the freedom required. Probably even more in scripted, adaptation is everything. Adaptation is done well when people don’t know that this is a format because they don’t have to. The reason why people come to us to adapt scripted formats is that we’ve got fantastic stories. Award-winning writers have written fantastic scripts; it’s great that writers around the world can access them and make them their own, but use the backbone of the story. We do give quite a decent amount of flexibility to our clients.”

There is interest in tape sales of remade formats, Duguet said, but the rights situation can be challenging. “One of the challenges is that some of the commissioning broadcasters are global players. Especially in India, it is a requirement to have the shows available globally on their platforms. Therefore, there are limited opportunities for us to exploit outside of that platform. It’s been encouraging that we’ve had more and more demand for the availability of the adaptation of our formats.”

Of note, Duguet said, the Chinese version of Miss Fisher’s Murder Mystery traveled across Asia and aired in the U.S. and Canada.

The conversation then shifted to non-scripted, a key business for All3Media International region-wide. The Traitors secured its first regional deal with Prime Video in India. “They’ve done a fantastic job on the casting,” Duguet said. “It’s set in an incredible location.” Other versions are expected to roll out in the region, Duguet added.

On what commissioners are looking for today. Duguet said it’s a mix of everything, and having a “targeted” approach to meet the needs of a challenging market is crucial. A concept like Rise and Fall was perfect for India, she said, but may not be as well suited to the other parts of the region. Southeast Asia, meanwhile, is keen for branded content. Factual entertainment is picking up interest as well, she said. Cash Cab is still popular in smaller territories. There have also been some sleeper successes, like Teenage Boss.

Talking more on branded entertainment, Duguet said that shows have become “more subtle” as brands “look more at partnering up with content that conveys a positive message or will make them look good rather than an obvious ‘minutes on screen’ and having the logo as big as possible. That has opened opportunities. Before, it was a lot about the studio show where you could really have as much visual sponsorship as possible, but now it’s more about the association of strong brands. We find ourselves doing a lot more work with our partners on targeted pitches per territory on how a local brand could benefit from the show.”