Chapter 7: Radio (30629.0K) - McGraw-Hill

Media Probe
Reality—What a Concept
The biggest trend in international television for the last five
years has been reality television—shows such as Survivor,
American Idol, and Big Brother—and the company that’s
responsible for many of them is the London-based FreemantleMedia,
part of the huge Bertelsmann media conglomerate.
Although Freemantle did not invent the reality format,
the company was its leading promoter and is now raking in
money from 263 shows in 37 countries. Like MTV, Freemantle
learned that the key to international success was to find a
concept with global appeal and tailor it to local tastes. For
example, the dream of going from rags to riches seems to be a
universal one and is behind Freemantle’s greatest success—
American Idol, as it’s known in the United States.
The “idol” concept began in Great Britain as the brainchild
of Simon Fuller and Simon Cowell who envisioned a talent
show but with built-in drama that lasted for weeks and
finally ended with a nationwide election. The governmentchartered
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) wanted
nothing to do with the show, but the commercial network ITV
picked it up and called it Pop Idol. The program became the
biggest phenomenon to hit Britain since the Beatles.
Even with its success in Britain, the idol concept almost
never made it to the United States. The ABC network refused
it, and the Fox network was cool to it until the daughter of
Rupert Murdoch, the boss of the company that owns Fox, told
her father about the show’s huge popularity in the United
Kingdom. Murdoch asked that Fox executives take another
look. They did, and American Idol aired in 2002 and became a
big hit in the United States.
Freemantle conquered other countries as well. There’s
Belgian Idool, Portugal Idolos, Deutschland Sucht den Super-
Star in Germany, a Pan-Arabic SuperStar in the Middle East,
and even SuperStar KZ in Kazakhstan. In all, the idol concept
is in 30 countries, and income from the program boosted Freemantle’s
revenues to more than a billion dollars in 2004.
Freemantle’s promotional strategy is also notable. The
local TV network spends the money promoting and creating a
pop star, and then BMG, the music division of the Bertelsmann
organization, signs the winner to a recording contract and
takes in the resulting revenues. The debut album of Clay Aiken
(American Idol, 2003) sold more than 2.5 million copies, generating
about $40 million in income for BMG. In addition, much of
the voting for idol contestants is done using text messaging. In
some countries, Freemantle has worked out a deal to share
the income with the local cell phone company from the huge
number of messages generated by the program.
What’s the next universal concept that Freemantle is betting
on? It’s a program called How Clean is Your House? with
two women who tackle the dirtiest cleaning jobs in the country.
Naturally, Freemantle is working on a sponsorship deal
with companies that manufacture household-cleaning products.
The program has already identified its American target:
college fraternity houses.
On the set of CNN
International. During
its news broadcasts,
CNN International
links together
anchorpersons from
CNN bureaus all over
the world.
■ The Economist, also based in London, carries financial news and analysis. Readily available in
the United States, the weekly is printed in Virginia, London, and Singapore. It reaches about
800,000 readers.
■ The Wall Street Journal’s international editions reach about 1 million people, mainly in Europe,
Asia, and South America.
Other papers that enjoy international status are the New York Times, Le Monde (France),
El País (Spain), The Times (Great Britain), The Statesman (India), and Al Ahram (Egypt).
The international flow of news is dominated by global news agencies. Reuters, Associated
Press, Agence France-Presse, and ITAR-TASS are the biggest, but in recent years more
specialized news organizations, such as the New York Times Syndicate and the Los Angeles
Times Syndicate, have also become important.
As far as magazines are concerned, Reader’s Digest publishes more than 49 international
editions that are distributed to
about 19 million readers in
nearly 200 countries. Time
Warner, in addition to publishing
the international edition of
Time, which is distributed in
about 190 countries, also
publishes Asiaweek and a
newsweekly in Chinese. The
international edition of
Newsweek reaches about a halfmillion
readers. Hearst Maga-
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