The Arab world has been depending on
foreign formats for a long while now.
In regard to Turkey, Arabelle Pouliot-Di Crescenzo, managing director of Paris-based KABO International, said: "The country has established itself as an important player in the TV market both in adapting
foreign formats and in development as well."
Investing millions in re-versioning
foreign formats, broadcasters only see upside from domestic.
(2) Since Polish adaptations of
foreign formats are not created from scripts written in the Polish language, such adaptations are not recognised as domestic programmes from a legal point of view.
By this she means not only the predictable adaptations of
foreign formats and program elements but also unusual and ephemeral phenomena like the 1973 short-lived adaptation of Soul Train or the 1975 election in London of a Puerto Rican mulatto Miss World.
In the past Jenkins has often used
foreign formats in his work, such as Japanese haiku poetry in Requiem, but he admits that this latest project, has been his most ambitious.
Overseas versions of the show have seen the Big Brother house split into two, but Mr Gardam said Channel 4 was not planning to follow
foreign formats.