Money Drop is Europe's most valuable TV format

Wednesday, March 20th, 2013
Digital TV Research logo

Relative newcomer Money Drop was the top format title by value created in 2012; pushing Come Dine With Me into second place, according to a new 172-page report that covers 16 territories. The TV Formats in Europe report further states that The Voice entered the top 10 in 2012. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire was the top title in both 2009 and 2010, but had dropped to ninth in 2012.

Top five titles by value created in 2012 ($ million)

Channel                 Distributor    $ mil.
----------------------  -------------  ------
Money Drop              Endemol         213.4
Come Dine with Me       ITV Studios     194.6
Deal or No Deal         Endemol         129.1
Dancing with the Stars  BBC Worldwide   127.7
The Voice               Talpa           126.9

Michael Cluff, co-author and director at Madigan Cluff, said: “The value created by the top 100 formats was $2,745 million in 2012 for the 84 European channels across the 16 territories covered in this report. The 2012 figure was 5.3% up on the 2011 total and 20.1% up on 2009. Correspondingly, the number of hours broadcast reached 26,235 in 2012, up by 27.5% on 2009.”

Top five titles by format hours broadcast in 2012

Channel            Distributor  Hours
-----------------  -----------  -----
Come Dine with Me  ITV Studios  5,006
Big Brother        Endemol        957
The Voice          Talpa          946
Money Drop         Endemol        833
Deal or No Deal    Endemol        810

Jonathan Bailey, co-author and Managing Director of ETS, added: “Come Dine with Me was the most screened format in 2012 by some distance, with its total number of hours rising over the last three years. The hourly total of Endemol’s Big Brother fell considerably in 2010 and 2011, but made a slight comeback in 2012. Also in the top 10, Deal or No Deal and X Factor are declining. However, relative newcomers The Voice, Money Drop and Still Standing are showing strong growth.”

The top three distributors accounted for half of the format hours screened in 2012. ITV Studios (5,425 hours) is the largest distributor by hours, mainly due to Come Dine with Me. FremantleMedia (3,316 hours and supplier of 13 titles in the top 100) and Endemol (4,231 hours and 12 titles) followed.

However, Endemol ($711 million – 26% of the total) was the leading distributor by value created in 2012, followed by FremantleMedia ($456 million – 17%). ITV was third, with 10% of the total. So, these three distributors combined took 53% of the total value created.

The values in the report are the financial benefit (sourced by activities such as advertising revenues or a proportion of annual household license fee income) that broadcasters receive from screening these formats.

More: TV Formats In Europe

Links: Market Research Store