"Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" and the Cultural Impact of TV Formats

I defined internationalisation in my post on the cultural flow of the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime, but I will sum it up here again as a refresher. Hesmondhalgh uses the term 'internationalisation' to mean the increase in cultural flow and deregulation of global trade that takes place in the era of late capitalism (Hesmondhalgh, 2013). Part and parcel of internationalisation is the trade not only of fully fledged cultural products- as was the form Yu-Gi-Oh! travelled to the West in- but also the trade in ideas for products. Any Hollywood remake of a so-called foreign film that makes sweeping changes to appeal to a western audience will suffice as an example, but to illustrate this I'll use The Magnificent Seven (Sturges, 1960). This picture was a remake of the Japanese film The Seven Samurai (Kurosawa, 1954), using roughly the same plot and character archetypes, but the location was transferred to the Old West to appeal more to American viewers, who may not have empathised as much with a band of historical Japanese warriors.

One of the powerful examples of internationalisation in action is the transfer of television formats between territories. Oren and Shahaf believed that TV formats can create a level playing field between countries with powerful cultural industries, like the United States, and countries whose industries are not as well developed (Oren & Shahaf, 2012).

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? is a TV format first broadcast in the United Kingdom on ITV in 1998. Despite this version being cancelled in 2014, it enjoys a large following in other parts of the world thanks to its adaptable format. Over 100 different versions of the show have been produced worldwide and in India, eight different versions exist to represent different linguistic and cultural groups.

While formatted shows have remained popular around the world, there have been some criticisms of the packaged television format. Whilst analysing format shows in South Africa, Nkosi Ndlela observed that content tended to be very Western in nature (Oren & Shahaf, 2012: 242-259). In South African Idol for example, he found that almost all of the songs were by American and British artists singing in English and cited viewer complaints that the show did not do enough to represent African music and culture (Oren & Shahaf, 2012: 242-259).

There is also the problem of the show's content conflicting with views held by a state or its people. Many packaged format shows created in the West, including Millionaire, espouse ideals synonymous with capitalist ideology. Contestants compete for a material prize, which is awarded based on skill in a particular field- in Millionaire, this skill is knowledge. Shows laid out in this way can be problematic in countries where the dominant ideology is not capitalism, such as in China, where a version of the show exists in the form of celebrities competing for charity money, rather than the traditional prize format (Bǎi Wàn Zhì Duō Xīng, 2007-08).

Weighing out the pros and the cons, one has a mind to disagree with Nkosi Ndlela and conclude that there are enough differences in format shows across the world for them to be viable cultural products. Format shows in the global east-south will never shake off their Western roots, but I believe that, due to the historic dominance of Western countries in the cultural marketplace, this is a trend across media and not one exclusive to the format show template. In fact, one could say that the malleable formats free up the amount of indigenous culture that can thrive in said shows and I would cite the use of the Millionaire format in officially communist China for charity over personal profit as a key example.

SOURCES:

Bǎi Wàn Zhì Duō Xīng, 2007-08 [TV]. GuiZhou TV.

Hesmondhalgh, D., 2013. The Cultural Industries, Available at: http://www.amazon.com/Cultural-Industries-Prof-David-Hesmondhalgh/dp/1412908086.

Oren, T. & Shahaf, S., 2012. Global television formats : understanding television across borders, Routledge.

The Magnificent Seven. (1960). [DVD] United States: John Sturges.

The Seven Samurai. (1954). [film] Japan: Akira Kurosawa.