A new day dawning for kids formats?

Toronto, Canada's Tricon Films, a well-known adult reality player, will be at MIPCOM trying to widen the global footprint of its first kids show, The Next Star. But the company isn't just trying to distribute the original production around the world; it's also taking a run at selling the format rights.

Now, you may be thinking that this is simply the naive pipedream of a kids industry neophyte, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Evidence suggests that a bona fide kids formats market has been developing steadily since late 2005, when a wave of kid-friendly reality/game show hybrids first hit the international scene in hopes of piggybacking on the success of mainstream megahits like Survivor and Amazing Race. And these pioneering efforts in the kids space have paved the way for a new generation in the genre.

"Producers automatically think about creating formats now, whereas five or six years ago, it was unheard of," says Mindy Laxer, VP and GM of Apartment 11 Productions. The Montreal, Canada-based studio sold the format rights to its practical joke reality show Prank Patrol, originally commissioned by YTV, to CBBC in 2006.

The British format has experienced some success, with Manchester's Baker Media producing two full series for BBC and CBBC. It uses the original's basic gag formula (in each episode, everyday kids get to play an elaborate joke on family and friends), as well as its graphic branding (including some spiffy ninja prankster costumes and Prank Patrol van), to frame the British host and participants. Laxer says there are some other notable differences. "A little bit of tweaking is possible, and you can still maintain what you consider to be your format," she explains. For example, in order to bring the format in on the local prodco's budget, much of the footage was filmed at studio headquarters and not on location, as it was with the original series.

But, says Laxer, the real key to making a successful kids format is to start out with a universally appealing concept that will translate into other territories easily. She admits that Apartment 11 has been trying to format 2004 series Surprise! It's Edible Incredible! for a few years, but its food-focused elements - the show ends with a cook-off using ingredients found in kids' own homes - differ too much from country to country, and Laxer suspects this fact is keeping the series grounded.

Mystery Hunters, which currently airs on YTV in Canada and sends kids all around the world to investigate unexplained phenomena, has worked well as a dubbed series in other territories, but isn't a prime formats candidate. Laxer says the show's hefty travel budget and extensive production logistics would be off-putting to potential rights buyers.

But Laxer believes the fact that kids programming budgets vary so widely from territory to territory is what has traditionally kept formatting from being a successful model until now. And if producers are serious about formatting their shows, then they had better be prepared to put in a lot of legwork with potential broadcasters to create ways of working around budget limitations without degrading the integrity of their original content. Besides shifting production to a stationary location on Prank Patrol, for example, Apartment 11 flew some costumes that had been used for a prank in the original series across the pond to do double duty in an ep of the CBBC version.