Asia’s biggest, shiniest and most expensive regional formats year ever is drawing to a close. Other than unprecedented, is there a word or a phrase that sums up the year in regional formats? We’re thinking it should be “Brave” (maybe even BRAVE), because whatever did or didn’t go right, these were big giant bets by a pay-TV industry well aware that local relevance is king but still a bit shaky on the whole who/how/why of funding big dreams.

Who’s leading the way into 2016? Fox International Channels (FIC) with season four of Asia’s Next Top Model for female-focused pay-TV channel Star World. The series, by FremantleMedia Asia for the first time, is in production and will air in early 2016.

On a smaller scale, Scripps Networks Interactive has green lit season two of U.S. format, Food Wars, which will air on Food Network Asia on 11 January 2016 in a prime time 10pm slot.

Scripps has also green lit the first local version of long-running U.S. format House Hunters for HGTV Asia. The Singapore-based regional network is working with Endemol Shine’s Singapore-based regional office on the production of both Food Wars Asia and House Hunters Asia.

2015’s other big regional players had not showed their hands for the new year at press time, with no confirmation on second seasons of Asia’s Got Talent (Sony Pictures Television Networks Asia/AXN), MasterChef Asia (A+E Networks Asia/Lifetime) or How Do I Look? Asia (NBCUniversal Channels/Diva).

If a question mark still hangs over the returns of three of 2015’s big four regional titles, there’s no getting away from the estimated US$16 million boost they added to the original production environment in 2015. Between them, the four formats also added a little more than 52 hours of original video content on air across Asia, many multiples of that in encore telecasts, and countless hours of online audience engagement in a market clamouring for local relevance and pay-TV platforms demanding original shows.

As the year draws to a close, we counted 132 formats that premiered in Asia or had been commissioned for 2016 from the beginning of 2015. That’s excluding the shows that premiered in 2014 and ran through 2015.

Endemol Shine was way and by far in the lead by mid-November, with 28 shows on air in 2015 or commissioned for 2016. Talpa was second with 13, with FremantleMedia Asia in third place with 12 and Armoza fourth with nine. Tying for sixth place were NBCUniversal and all3media, followed by CBS Studios International and Korea’s CJ E&M, which tied for for sixth place with five each.

Competitions, contests and game shows across a range of skills – singing, dancing, cooking... – continue to rule. Talpa had six versions of The Voice in Asia this year, including all-time-record-buster The Voice of China.

Drama is clearly much more difficult. Armoza has one in development in Vietnam; crime drama The Arbitrator, about a social worker who discovers he is the lost son of the underworld’s most powerful man, is scheduled to air on VTV in 2016.

The handful of drama formats sold into Asia include a Korean version of Keshet International’s Prisoners of War, which was announced in February 2014 and still hasn’t made it to air. Keshet International sales director for Asia and Latin America, Kelly Wright, says the show is in production and should be on air in 2016. Keshet’s family drama/spy thriller, MICE (aka Spy/The Gordin Cell), on the other hand, was successfully adapted for Korean public broadcaster, KBS, early in 2015 and ran in a Friday prime-time 9.30pm slot.

Asia’s formats bosses have mixed expectations for the region in 2016.

Kristian Kender, managing director of CMM-i/China, which represents all3media in China, says there’s an expansion into reality – and particularly outdoor reality in the wake of Where Are We Going Dad? – across the mainland after years of big shiny music and entertainment floor shows.

Chinese broadcasters are also increasingly up close and personal with Korean formats producers and distributors, some of which are sending entire teams to China to support production on the ground.

Kender also notes the rising power of online/streaming platforms, which have commissioned shows such as two seasons of Are You Normal? and Big Brother. Season one of Are You Normal? had more than 500 million views, and season two is expected to go way beyond that, Kender told delegates at this year’s ContentAsia Formats/ContentAsia Summit in Singapore in September.

Even better news coming out of China is all about investment in production houses and funding even bigger, bolder productions. As budgets rise and commercial rates soar, companies such as China Media Capital are pouring into the space, buying into, for example, format rights broker IPCN in early 2015.

If Korea’s domestic market has proven difficult to crack for foreign rights holders, Korean formats creators and distributors have launched enthusiastic regional and international campaigns to spread their IP.

Hwang Jin Woo, senior manager and head of formats for CJ E&M’s content development team, says one of the biggest trends in Korea is hybrid formats that combine two existing concepts to create a whole new one.

So, for example, a game show with a little bit of reality, a pinch of competition and a few other twists and out pops The Genius Game. Or Three Meals a Day, which combines cookery with celebrity talk and a bit of social consciousness/psychology.

Formats bosses everywhere say all things Korean are hot.

Endemol Shine Group’s managing director for Asia, Fotini Paraskakis, puts Korea at the top of her trends list.

“It’s more about the new and fresh techniques, the storytelling, different twists and game play, drama and surprise,” she says.

She agrees with CJ E&M’s Hwang on the hybrid nature of popular shows, and says mixing it up “has created a major trend in Asia and especially China. And it’s now moving across to Europe and the U.S.”, she adds.

Food is massive. “Everyone loves food, that’s huge trend across Asia,” Paraskakis says. And not just for big-brand shows like MasterChef, which Endemol made in 2015 for A+E Networks Asia’s Lifetime channel.

“There’s a lot of demand for food any which way you like,” she says, noting strong and inspiring story telling, aspirational themes, and a chance for families to gather around a common experience.

Paraskakis says there is still demand for the “juggernauts” of the formats world “but not in the same way as we know them”.

“They’re being refreshed and revived, with different spins, different techniques in terms of how the voting mechanics works, how the creative works, how the set looks...” she says. “There’s still a demand from broadcasters for these mainstay shows, but it’s how do they keep them fresh and new and keep the viewers entertained,” she adds.

At the same time, classics such as Family Feud and The Price is Right retain an unassailable position in the formats landscape.

“I think one of the reasons is they’re just simple, classic structures, easily strippable, that fill those slots that our clients need,” she says. They’re also well received. “Everybody loves those shows, they all know them, they’re comforting, and they’re all-round entertainment and they’re guaranteed ratings, so they just keep on coming back.”

Paraskakis says kids are a rising trend, not just in original formats but for junior versions across a wider variety of big brand shows. “The big shows are now lending themselves to a kids or a teens version... I think it’s more about positivity, warmth, and it’s inspiring to see other kids and do things and it’s wholesome and heartwarming,” she says.

If drama is still tiny in comparison to game, competition and reality shows in Asia, it’s gaining ground. “There’s more drama than ever before, the storylines are more complex, there’s more suspense,” Paraskakis says.

“Telenovelas are further pushing the boundaries, and what’s more interesting for us is that we’re seeing more international formats break into the local market, particularly in India, also China, Philippines and Thailand. That’s good for us, because we plan to launch some next year,” she adds.

In Thailand, the market shifted massively in the past year, with 24 new commercial digital terrestrial stations all at once and a cutthroat fight for ratings. It’s a whole new game show, says Varavuth Jentanakul, chief executive officer of Thai production house Zense Entertainment Thailand, which produces shows such as The Money Drop Thailand, The Love Machine and Sing Your Face Off Thailand.

Jentanakul says effective targeting, audience segmentation and higher entertainment value are the holy grail in Thailand as broadcasters jostle for a place in the newly crowded environment.

David Gunson, the Imagine Group’s general manager of distribution and production, says similar bars have been raised everywhere. “You’ve only got to look at the shows that are being produced across Asia now, by companies within Asia,” he says.

The result is a virtuous quality cycle that, among other things, expands the look, feel and multi-screen engagement of programmes being made.

Gunson notes the move towards observational reality in other parts of the world and predicts a similar emergence in Asia.

What’s on the way out are shows that are seen to be sending a “you can’t be too thin” message to young girls. Gunson says these have made way for formats that are more about empowerment, healthy lifestyles, positive messages. Something, indeed, to look forward to in Asia in the New Year.

Published on 26 November 2015. This feature first appeared in ContentAsia...inprint, published for the Asia TV Forum in Singapore in December 2015.