Bart Simpson, America’s favorite brat, is tres cool in France. In Germany, they prefer Al Bundy’s brood. David Letterman’s stupid pet tricks are selling in Mexico.
And why, oh why, do Malaysians love MacGyver?
It’s all part of the new frontier for American television-the increasingly lucrative foreign market. Not only are the network and cable executives trying to figure out what you want to watch, they’re trying to determine what your overseas neighbors want to watch.
Television producers are drooling because foreign sales are like finding money in the street. While figures aren’t easily available on the profits from exporting TV shows, the programs have already paid off from first-run and syndication sales in the U.S.
Asking around with international TV production executives turns up what sells and what won’t sell around the world.
“Baywatch” is the hottest show, peddling its sun- and sex-drenched fantasy in over 100 countries. So is “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman,” sold in more than 75 countries. Game shows and teen programs also are popular-Germans love “Beverly Hills, 90210.”
While none of the American shows air in a foreign market’s prime time, mostly filling up afternoon and late-evening hours, the number of consumers is likely to grow in emerging markets such as China, India, Eastern Europe and Latin America.
But to sell to the world, you can’t just load a boat with “Seinfeld” reruns and wait for profits at a currency exchange. Cultural differences are a fascinating and frustrating maze for makers of U.S. TV shows.
Ferenc Tolvaly is a Budapest-based game show producer and television executive who sells throughout Central and Eastern Europe. Adapted versions of “Wheel of Fortune” with native hosts are popular in Slovakia, Croatia and Hungary, with shows planned for Russia and Romania, he says.
But in each place, the set and stage must be different.
“In Hungary, we are working with cold colors like green and blue. In Croatia we have very warm colors, orange, red,” Tolvaly said. “There is a distance between Budapest (Hungary) and Zagreb (Croatia) of only 300 kilometers, but the people have very different ways of thinking.”
While many game shows can be adapted easily, selling hit U.S. sitcoms to other countries is a different matter.
” `Roseanne’ wouldn’t work for a non-English audience,” said Hong Kong-based John Kaye, director of television research for Survey Research Group. “The whole setting, the family, the nature of the relationships is just an enigma for the Far Eastern audience. It’s just not the way they could ever envision a family working.
” `The Simpsons’ portrays a style of family that by and large isn’t likely to work either in the Far East,” he added. Another no-go for “The Simpsons” is Germany. “It didn’t work well on our network,” said Hans Jurgen Steimer, vice president of acquisitions and co-productions for ZDF Enterprises GmbH based in Mainz.
“In Germany it’s not an older audience that will look at animation. In France, yes, there are even comic books for adults. But in Germany animation is for kids, not adults.”
There are a number of sitcom exceptions. Everything from “Murphy Brown” to “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” has sold well overseas. “There has been a rule that (U.S.) comedy doesn’t sell,” said Jeffrey Schlesinger, senior vice president of Warner Bros. international TV division. “That’s not really true. In Australia and Germany, `Alf’ was a bigger show than in the United States.”
U.S. talk shows have traditionally failed to sell to other countries, including English-speaking ones. But that’s changed in the evolving international market.
“We are now distributing David Letterman’s show,” said Joseph Di Certo, CBS Broadcast International director of communications. “We’ve managed to sell it in Germany, Australia and Mexico.”
Action-adventure shows always have been hot sellers, but they have run afoul of the anti-TV violence debate. Miami Vice aired successfully for 26 weeks in Hungary but was deemed too violent and taken off the air.
“There is more concern over gratuitous violence in markets like England, France and Germany,” said Schlesinger of Warner Brothers.
But one former ABC hit with off-screen or inferred violence has bridged the cultural gap to the Far East. ” `MacGyver’ has done fantastically well in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. Sometimes it has actually come out No. 1,” said Kaye, the ratings man based in Hong Kong. Kaye adds that a program almost can’t be too violent in China and other Far Eastern countries, based on the history of karate serials.
The future for exported U.S. programming could be with young viewers who can follow the pace of U.S. TV and appreciate the power of pop culture. “Most kids (throughout Latin America) would tell you they’d rather see the U.S. MTV than MTV Latino (which is shot in Miami),” said Eduardo Ruiz of Gems Television, a Florida-based company that sells Spanish-language programming in the United States. “They want to see what’s shown in the States.”
That’s contrary to nationalism in other parts of the world. “A mass audience wants to watch their own shows,” said Joel Denton, director of sales for London-based ITEL. “Most countries are comfortable with their own icons, their own country, their own people.”
Columbia Tristar International Television is working to supply programs and the know-how to build sets and write scripts for developing TV markets. But there are exceptions.
“Married . . . With Children” is a hit in Germany. When German producers tried to launch a native version it failed. Viewers preferred the Fox show dubbed in German.
“Germans,” said Klaus Thora, who scouts for Bavarian TV, “don’t have a sense of humor. Americans can laugh at themselves, but Germans can’t laugh about themselves. They only like to laugh at others. The Americans are looser.”
