TV Formats in Argentina

JUAN CARLOS HALLAK; ALEJANDRO ARTOPOULOS; DANIEL FRIEL

Export Pioneers in Latin America

Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo y David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies

Lugar: Cambridge; Año: 2012; p. 295 - 312

Exports of television programs have increased dramatically with the advent of formats. The format itself is nothing more than the idea, main structure, and salient features of a program. Formats are programs made either by stripping existing series of their local cultural content or by directly developing story lines without specific cultural references, thus creating a flexible product that can be adapted to the idiosyncrasies of different markets. They are licensed to broadcasters, which adapt the format with content specific to the local culture. When making this kind of adaptation, the company producing the format often sells not only production services but consulting services. The sales of such services often prove more profitable than the sale of the format itself. The nature of formats enables companies that make them to sell their products to a wide variety of countries.