The programming boss talks a range of issues including commissioning content.
While recording an interview with 9’s programming boss Hamish Turner, who was here to talk about the highly anticipated new show The Summit, I took the opportunity to ask him about a range of topics.
The Summit is full of twists and you’ll really enjoy the adventure. It airs tonight at 7.30pm on Channel 9.
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Rob McKnight:
All right, The Summit is coming to Channel 9. The network is very excited, and I assume none more so than this man. The programmer at 9, Hamish Turner. Good day, Hamish. Welcome to TV BlackBox.
Hamish Turner:
Good day Rob. Good to be back. Thanks for having me back.
Rob McKnight:
Yeah, well it was touch and go. I wasn’t sure, but I joke. Hamish, this is a big show. It looks spectacular. It is one of those shows that you think you know where it’s going, but it actually tricks you and takes you in different directions.
Hamish Turner:
That’s right, and that’s the great thing about this show and the great thing about a new show as well, a show that hasn’t been seen anywhere in the world, but both the participants and the audience have no idea where it’s going to take you. I like to think of it as a bit of deconstructed reality. The tropes of reality often lead you in a direction, you got the format points, but with this one and throughout the entire first season, there is absolute unpredictability, and I think that’s the pure joy of watching those first seasons of any new show. You don’t know what the rules of the show are, but you just let go and you go on that journey. You see that in terms of the participants as well, but they embraced it and they went with it.
That’s why as the show unfolds, I think you’ll continue to be surprised and thrilled, excited. It feels very authentic, very fresh, very new. There’s nothing really else out there like that, and very ambitious. As you say, the scale of the show is ridiculous. It’s like a high octane action thriller, and it was informed very much by those big blockbusters we saw through the nineties and noughties. We think of Cliffhanger and Sly Stallone hanging on for life or partner in the first few seconds, and it takes a lot of cues from there. But I think it does take reality to a whole new space, and we’re excited to bring it to the Australian audience.
Rob McKnight:
Look, it looks like a very expensive show. In this day and age, is it a gamble doing a new format like this? There’s a lot of heritage brands that are around that are tried and true that are being served up to audiences, but this has an epic scale to it. I imagine it was a little bit more money to make it. Does that make it a tougher proposition?
Hamish Turner:
Look, I think the thing we know is that audiences want to be surprised. I think bringing back formats, it’s only ever going to have a certain level of appeal to it. I think with a show like this, you have to be ambitious, you have to push the boat out, but you also have to be smart in terms of the people you work with. There’s no one better in the business in terms of Endemol Shine within this space. We’ve worked very closely with them on Married at First Sight, Lego Masters. Those versions of those shows are the preeminent versions in the world. I think going with them and them as a creative powerhouse, we couldn’t have asked for a better partner in terms of bringing a new format and a paper format to the market. Yes, it is ambitious, but I think with that comes the thrill of the ride. I don’t think you can look at those promos and not at least have a look at the show and once you get there, I think it will absolutely deliver.
Rob McKnight:
My family are wanting more episodes to watch. They really loved it. I don’t know if I’d broken a protocol by watching with the family, but I used them as a bit of a-
Hamish Turner:
Do you have a Blackbox at home?
Rob McKnight:
No, unfortunately. Am I right in thinking Amelia Fisk and Endemol Shine came up with this concept?
Hamish Turner:
Look, it was a show that was brought in by Endemol. When it first came in the door, I don’t think it was fully fleshed out, definitely a paper play.
Rob McKnight:
Right.
Hamish Turner:
It was a bit of an idea. We were having internal conversations I think it was a few months after and we’re kind of looking within the action adventure space and started talking about The Summit again, and then that’s when-
Rob McKnight:
Is that because you knew Million Dollar Island was coming to seven or just?
Hamish Turner:
Oh God, no, that was way before. Yeah, no, I mean in terms of timelines, you’re talking mid last year I would think. The runway, especially with a new format, it needs to have time.
Rob McKnight:
Of course.
Hamish Turner:
And I think even Amelia will talk to this, I think sometimes the show reveals itself a little bit as you get into it. That’s the great thing about it from a production perspective, and I don’t want to talk for Amelia, but I think, you know, couldn’t have more of an exciting opportunity to create a new show, a new format, and see that come to life in front of you. I think they’ve absolutely nailed it in terms of delivering on that front. To be honest, I haven’t been as excited about the show for a very, very long time.
Rob McKnight:
That’s an interesting one. Let me ask you about the commissioning process. Last night my wife and I went and saw the new John Farnham documentary and one of the elements that stuck out to us was, it’s that age-old story where creation is in the garage. He did the first demo versions for Whispering Jack in his garage.
Hamish Turner:
Yeah.
Rob McKnight:
It made us think about the fact, we had a drink afterwards and we thought about the fact that our garage is essentially a TV studio. There’s a garage around the corner that’s a barber, no one parks their cars in their garage anymore. My wife said, “That should be a TV show”. And I thought, “Yeah, it should”. But I don’t know that we are in a world where unless it’s going through a production company like Endemol Shine, networks aren’t looking for ideas that are outside those big production companies are they?
Hamish Turner:
I think the challenge is for creatives coming up with, and there’s certain levels of scale obviously, with these shows. I think it’ll be very hard to do a show like The Summit without a production company like Endemol Shine that has a big engine behind them. Just the pure logistics of pulling that off, not only pulling it off, but also pulling it off in terms of the worldwide group. I think the great thing for Endemol here, and obviously they’re owned by Banijay. Banijay is the French company that owns them. In terms of development of IP, I think they will have invested in this because we and they have ambitions that this show obviously travels far and wide. I’m not talking just from an acquisition perspective, I’m talking from a format perspective.
You couldn’t have a better environment to go in now, if we are successful with this show, the rider strikes in the States, we know they’re looking for reality content.
Rob McKnight:
Ah.
Hamish Turner:
The great thing for us, Australia should be as Korea are in terms of the reality space, we should be that preeminent destination where people look to the next big hits because we’ve got amazing talent out here, we have great heritage in terms of reality and we arguably make the best versions of reality shows in the world. Master Chefs and other great examples, Survivor is another great example. They are at the top of their game in terms of the formats worldwide.
Rob McKnight:
Once upon a time you could only really have Australian dramas traveling internationally outside the US because the US is usually inward looking. Now we’re starting to see Australian reality shows go internationally. I just literally had a Google alert just before I spoke to you that the metro had picked up something from the podcast because we spoke about Married at First Sight, which is airing in the UK right now. Are you surprised at the popularity Australian reality TV can have overseas now?
Hamish Turner:
No, not having watched it.
Rob McKnight:
Okay, fair question. Fair answer.
Hamish Turner:
I think again, what happened was we were in Covid and what the international broadcasters weren’t able to make the same level of, volume of content to service the schedule and so they looked externally overseas to find versions, obviously Australian version, English language that makes sense. It was possibly a happy accident with Married at First Sight, it caught fire and then went off.
It was really through that Covid period that it went to that next level. Like all things, sometimes people stumble across something and then it becomes a thing. But I would say that in terms of those shows, and again I talk about Master Chef, like the Australian version of Master Chef from all I hear is huge internationally, and I think it’s Indian following is next level.
No, Australia, and driven by the commercial networks, their bread and butter is obviously news, but then reality TV. You look only 15 years ago and it was all US drama. Thank God we’ve moved on from there. Especially when you come into another [inaudible 00:09:36] strike. I’d hate to think what it would be like going into a space where half the content may not be coming to you next year.
Rob McKnight:
Well, and you don’t face that now because essentially our primetime content is all Australian and as you say, you go back 15, 20 years, it certainly wasn’t that.
Hamish Turner:
That’s right. Yeah, we have become the craft or where the craft of reality shows come from. I think the next phase for this country is being the place where ideation and new show ideas come from and that the networks back them in, and Australia is known as that place you go to get the best reality TV worldwide.
Rob McKnight:
Before I let you go, content quotas is becoming a big thing. It’s playing out in federal parliament with submissions being made. When I first heard the streamers were, the government was looking to make the streamers do 20 pin. I assume the networks would be happy about that because why should Channel 9, Channel 7, Channel 10 have to make local content if the streamers are coming into this market and not doing it. I was obviously surprised, and it makes sense when Mike Sneesby came out and said, “No, this is not good for us. It will force up prices because there is only a certain amount, there is a small talent pool when it comes to producing these things and all the prices will go up”.
Hamish Turner:
Yeah.
Rob McKnight:
It’s an interesting argument, isn’t it?
Hamish Turner:
Yeah, I mean there’s only a finite amount of resources and then when you flick a switch, I think in any model that you build, building up to something which delivers sustainability is probably the model you want to go with. Being able to just flick a switch and put a number on it and saying, “Tomorrow you need to deliver this”, it isn’t going to work. It’s not sustainable. And we actually just don’t have the number of creatives to actually to deliver upon that. What will happen is prices will go up. There’s already a scarcity of great talent out there. I fear that what this artificial legislation is going to, what it’s going to do to the broader metrics within the market.
Rob McKnight:
Free-to-air TV, FreeTV has put their submission in. If you’re a betting man, do you have any guess on which way it’ll go?
Hamish Turner:
I do not. I think as part of any change, it will come with some other change. I think I’m intrigued as to what the give and take here is and where it eventually lands. I think there probably will be something. And as you know, we’re in discussions with the government around prominence. We’re in discussions in the government around anti-siphoning, so there’s a lot of issues at the moment.
Rob McKnight:
Lot of balls in the air.
Hamish Turner:
Yeah, so let’s see where they all land.
Rob McKnight:
Hamish Turner, The Summit is on Channel 9 and 9Now of course, good luck with the show. It is an amazing watch, genuinely. I tend to call it how I see it, so I do believe it. I think it’s a great watch. I genuinely, the thing that got me and Amelia has done this to me, I thought, “Oh, this isn’t playing out how they wanted because I can see where it’s going”. And then of course she pulled the rug from underneath my feet and I went, “Ah, there’s a twist”.
Hamish Turner:
Oh yeah. And how about that ending? Did you love the ending?
Rob McKnight:
Yes.
Hamish Turner:
I thought it was, it was next level.
Rob McKnight:
It’s amazing. Congratulations on that and good luck with it.
Hamish Turner:
Great. Thanks mate. Good to chat. Cheers.
Rob McKnight:
Cheers.
