ceetv.net continues with the series of interviews with some of the most interesting speakers taking part in the first ever MIP Academy DO, organized by Reed MIDEM. The event will take place in Moscow on May 12-13, 2013.

Ben Hall is former Managing Director at Shine Group. Having earlier worked as creative director of format development at BBC Worldwide, he later became creative director of the entertainment department at the Digital Rights Group (an independent British international television distributer). In 1996 along with Tom Ellemann he set up Chatterbox, developing more than 30 internationally recognized television formats from scratch. In 2009 Hall joined the Shine Group as the managing director of the Shine Network, developing, acquiring and distributing content.

CEETV’s Maria Ruban did a quick Q&A with Ben Hall ahead of the event:

ceetv: How do you come up with ideas?

BH: Ideas are funny things, they can come from pretty much anywhere but I am also a believer in structured creative thinking. Short sharp bursts of focused idea generation with anything and everything up for grabs followed by a session of 'harvesting' where the best starting points are chosen, then 'green housing' - a chance for those ideas to be developed and thought through, followed now, more than ever, by the need to 'make it real' - shoot something if you can or stage a run through for a game show. I think TV could learn a lot from other creative industries about the rigor with which they approach the creative process. I, personally, find the ad hoc nature of TV development frustrating!

ceetv: What are Shine's most successful projects?

BH: I left Shine on April 5 and am currently negotiating to start my own production company but by far their biggest property is MasterChef – the world’s biggest cooking format. This has gone from being produced in just one country, the UK, in early 2009 to now being produced in 38 countries and multiple series in many of those. It’s well on the way to being worth a billion dollars!

I also managed shows such as The Biggest Loser, One Born Every Minute, Got to Dance…

ceetv: What should producers pay attention to while adapting formats on local grounds?

BH: The key to a successful relationship between a format / rights owner and a local producer is mutual respect!

The format buyer must like something in the original and is happy to pay a license fee for the show so it makes very real sense for them to listen to the format owners and consultant producers involved in helping the format travel BUT the format owners have to similarly respect the local producers and to listen to and accept some local modification. It’s about brand management rather than brand policing!

ceetv: What are the TV trends you observe?

BH: The growth of the super hit – any success is given more episodes and grows out of its original scheduling to eat up the available real estate so that there are fewer opportunities for new shows to break through. This is fine if the show is genuinely great but also encourages mediocre shows that are past their sell by date to hand around!

Broadcaster laziness - with some notable exceptions, more and more broadcasters are simply waiting for one of the global super groups to walk in with the next 'hit' rather than making genuine efforts to cultivate their own as well.

ceetv: Is there a crisis of creativity in television in your opinion?

BH: Simple answer… yes.

But as always, there is more to it than that and this is a hard one. There are a lot of hugely talented and creative people working in TV and so, if there is a crisis, it’s not for lack of trying!

That said, there does seem to be an increasing wariness to take a genuine risk and it’s been a while since there has been a new show that genuinely made me sit up and think … Wow! There is a lot of copy-cat, derivative drivel on our screens and very little effort is being made to find genuinely new ways of engaging with younger audiences and of embracing the potential for 2 screen interaction.

I think we all need to collectively look at this: broadcasters, producers, creators, and to find new fair ways of addressing rights ownership and funding of development to address it.

ceetv: What will be the next big thing in television?

BH: If I knew I would be off producing it!

It will hopefully be something a little more original than yet another talent show. I have a hunch that it might involve meaningful live polling in some way.

ceetv: Which of the formats you invented you like the most?

BH: I love a show we created called Bands Reunited that saw a presenter set out to track down bands that have long ago split up before challenging them to reunite for a one off concert for their fans.

I am also hugely fond of Under Construction (Russian title – Dom) as it was the show that put Chatterbox on the format map, produced in 16 countries with, hopefully, more to come.