The idea travels better than the person does.
A famous person who knows nothing buys a farm, employs somebody who does, and loses money in public for five years. That structure works in any country with fields in it, and it is separable from the person at the centre of it — which is exactly what a television format is.
What a format actually is.
Not a programme. A format is the reproducible structure underneath one: the premise, the cast archetypes, the episode shape, the recurring beats and the production bible that lets a producer in another country make their own version without watching the original.
The one here is unusually clean. A well-known person with no agricultural experience takes on a farm. A competent young local farmer does the actual work and is visibly better at it. An agronomist delivers bad news. A builder runs over budget. The weather ruins something. The accounts are published and they are terrible.
Every element of that is castable in any country, and none of it depends on the specific person at the centre. That is the definition of a good format, and it is the reason this is worth more as a format than as a distribution deal.
What travels, and what does not.
| Element | Travels? | Note |
|---|---|---|
| The famous amateur | Yes | Every country has one. The role is the point, not the person |
| The competent young local farmer | Yes, and it is the strongest element | It is the relationship the audience actually watches |
| The agronomist who says no | Yes | Every agricultural system has regulation and somebody who explains it |
| The builder who runs over | Yes, universally | Possibly the most translatable element in the entire format |
| Published accounts | Yes, and it is what makes it honest | The willingness to show the loss is the format’s distinguishing feature |
| The specific planning fight | No | Planning law is national. The shape of a fight with a council is not |
| The subsidy detail | No | Every country’s agricultural support is different and none of it is transferable |
| The particular jokes | No | Which is fine. A format is not a script |
How a format sale would work.
The mechanics
- What is sold
- A licence to produce a local versionFor a defined territory and a defined number of series.
- The format fee
- Per episode, typicallyRanging enormously by territory and by broadcaster size.
- The bible
- A production document, and consultancyThe bible is the product. Writing a good one is most of the work.
- Consultancy
- A producer on the first seriesWhich is where format sales succeed or fail.
The problem with all of it
- Who owns the format
- Not the estateThe programme is made by production companies and commissioned by Amazon. The format rights sit with them.
- What the estate owns
- The farm, the businesses and the brandWhich is a great deal, and is not the same as a television format.
- What this page therefore is
- An argument, not a proposalIt describes what a format sale would look like if the rights holder chose to pursue one.
This is the only one of the four media businesses that the estate could not simply decide to start, and that fact is the most important thing on the page.
What a producer in another country would need.
A farm that is genuinely marginal
A prosperous farm produces no jeopardy and no format. The economics have to be real.
A famous person prepared to be bad at something
On camera, repeatedly, for five years. This is the rarest ingredient by a distance.
A local farmer who is better at it
And who is prepared to say so. The relationship is the show.
A broadcaster with patience
The first series of the original was eight episodes before anybody knew whether it worked.
A willingness to publish the numbers
Without which it is a lifestyle programme with a tractor in it.
The rights are not the estate’s, and nothing here is a proposal
The programme is produced by other companies and commissioned by Amazon. This page is an analysis of a format written by an unsolicited third party with no rights, no standing and no relationship with any of them. Nobody has been approached about anything on it.
The format, questioned.
Because the relationship between somebody who does not know what they are doing and somebody who does is the thing the audience is actually watching. Everything else is scenery.
No. The format rights sit with the production companies and the commissioner. This page describes what a sale would look like, not a sale anybody is in a position to make.
Almost certainly not. The premise requires somebody whose incompetence is interesting, and that requires an audience who already have an opinion about them.
And the policy vertical, which needs a register.
Farm policy news, and the lobbying transparency that is the price of writing it.
