Veteran US unscripted producer Phil Gurin unpacks how the shrinking buyer pool has forced indies to become more agile and embrace new platforms while finding innovative ways to do what they have always done: follow the money.
When Phil Gurin was finding his feet as an independent producer in the late 1990s and early 2000s, he says there were between 60 and 70 buyers he could pitch across the US and Europe.
Between the plethora of US broadcasters, cablenets and syndicators – all of which had their own development teams – and buyers across the Atlantic, the ability to generate numerous bites for original ideas was plentiful for an indie like The Gurin Company.
How times have changed.
Fast forward 25 years and the field of buyers, particularly in the US, has winnowed drastically as an onslaught of mergers – from Disney/Fox to Discovery/Scripps to Discovery/WarnerMedia to Paramount Skydance’s proposed takeover of Warner Bros Discovery – has flipped the supply-demand equation on its head.
“You would develop shows, spend money on a sizzle reel, R&D, casting reels, set designs, run throughs, and you’d have a whole host of places to pitch. Now in the US, it’s eight or 10,” he says. “Fifteen years ago, my friends in the UK used to complain that they only had five or six places to pitch. Well, [the US is] no different now.”
Gurin had a front-row seat to unscripted’s golden era, working on shows and formats including The Weakest Link (NBC), Shark Tank (ABC), Candid Camera (CBS) and Miss USA (NBC) in addition to a host of other shows such as Lingo (GSN), Oh Sit! (The CW) and Canada’s Ultimate Challenge (CBC). He has mourned the loss of the glory days and moved on but still has misgivings about today’s landscape and how it mirrors broader societal shifts.
“Is it really good when choosing creativity is reduced into a handful as opposed to a plethora of decision makers? How could that be good for the business?” he asks. “How could that be good for society when decisions are made by few, when there are so many people with so many great ideas and so much to offer, banging at the door trying to get in, trying to say their piece?”
Like so many, Gurin has been forced to adapt to a landscape of fewer buyers, fewer commissions and smaller budgets. Unscripted producers have continually shape-shifted over the past quarter-century to meet market demand and opportunity, but that is arguably harder today than ever before. Just ask the droves of industry workers – both established and on-the-rise – who have moved on to pastures new.
The latest mega-merger between Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros Discovery will not make things any easier for independent producers. The deal is currently in a state of limbo with 12 states including California looking to block it. If it is ultimately approved, the integration process will be wide-ranging and lengthy, which is never conducive to smooth, timely development and greenlight decisions.
YouTube channel Elixir’s Date on a Plate
Gurin peels back the curtain from the producer’s side of the equation, sharing that business at both companies is still moving along, albeit slowly. “I would say it’s not wide open. It’s not a dead stop, but it’s a baby crawl,” he says. “I think the desire is to have stuff in the pipeline but greenlights are going to be rare.”
So how is Gurin adapting? On the production side, he says The Gurin Company, the prodco he founded in 1997, has stayed open to all production models – from shows created and co-created by him for networks and streamers, to service production, to shows made for less traditional platforms.
“We’re open to all kinds of production models and all kinds of places where we can sell our creativity, not just the usual suspects,” he says.
He also made the jump into distribution three years ago with the launch of TGC Global Entertainment (TGC GE), which represents third-party formats, documentaries and unscripted series from both US and international producers, along with original content from The Gurin Company.
The time was right to move into distribution, says Gurin, as the hollowing out of the middle of the industry continued to gather pace. “Because I’ve spent decades toiling in the international business, it made sense for us to find the niche of distribution. And I say niche because, again, we face the eight or 10 behemoths, or as I call them the GEGs: the global entertainment giants,” he says.
Gurin worked on CBC’s Canada’s Ultimate Challenge
“But there’s room on the bottom. The middle class is getting screwed everywhere in the world for all kinds of other reasons, and the middle class in the entertainment business is also screwed. You’re either a big company or you’re that scrappy, creative, entrepreneurial, independent, small indie hoping to grow your business. So that’s what we’re hoping to do with our distribution company.”
And Gurin is not the only one who is finding plenty of business to be had outside of the so-called GEGs.
“At our distribution arm, we’re finding broadcasters, platforms, producers all around the world who don’t want to play with those big companies,” explains Gurin, who expresses praise for the media giants but also realises he must create business opportunities that are not reliant upon them. “They’re all great companies. I’m not trying to knock any of them. But this is where independents like us can find a way to feed ourselves and to grow our businesses.”
In a parallel universe, he might have become part of the GEGs, he admits. “I’ve gone down the M&A route many, many times,” he divulges, “but I walked away from all those deals because I just didn’t feel it was right for me.”
Key deals inked by TGC GE over the past year include acquiring Hunan TV’s breakout Chinese business reality format Gold Rush, which takes viewers into the nation’s universities to discover the next generation of innovators and entrepreneurs, and picking up international rights to a slate of digital-first dating formats from reality-focused YouTube channel Elixir, including Date on a Plate.
Gurin, who spent 11 years as board chair at the Format Recognition & Protection Association, is very upbeat on the need for producers to embrace YouTube as a distribution outlet for new formats and ideas. However, he also expresses concern about how formats created in the traditional TV world are being infringed up, often intentionally, by a new generation of YouTube-native creators.
TGC GE picked up rights to Chinese entrepreneur format Gold Rush
“We’re seeing a lot of IP launched on YouTube, and I say my words carefully there – IP ‘launched.’ There’s a lot of original content creation by young creators on YouTube, but since they don’t have any history or knowledge of the business – and because ideas on YouTube come at us like a fire hose – many of the ideas these young folks are putting out are based on a lot of existing IP, but they just don’t know it,” he says.
He acknowledges that it may be impossible to keep track of the IP infringement that takes place on YouTube, equating it to a game of “whack-a-mole” for major studios such as the BBC, ITV, Warner Bros Discovery and Disney.
The lack of an obvious solution does not detract from the size of the issue, however, which Gurin says “threatens the whole underpinning of the IP business.”
He continues: “If the next generation is just doing what they want, it becomes a lawless highway where people are just handing out speeding tickets when everybody’s going 150 miles an hour. It’s not going to work, and you could destroy big legacy brands and legacy companies if IP gets ripped off by people who don’t even know they’re ripping it off.”
So in an environment where it is so difficult for independent producers and distributors to know where to focus their time and energy, what is Gurin’s best business advice? For that, he quotes the 1976 Watergate-scandal movie All the President’s Men: follow the money.
“If there’s production, we’ll follow that. If there’s a YouTube project, we’ll follow that. If our team identifies a show that we should acquire from anywhere in the world, we’ll follow that. You have to be open-minded,” he says.
“There are companies that focus only on dating shows, or on physical competitions, and that’s great. Maybe they’re having great success. My longevity and my success is based on the fact I’m nimble and my team is nimble. We try to be open to whatever the fuck we can find. Forgive my language. And so that’s what we’re trying to do: follow the money.”
The FORMATS100 is an editorial initiative to profile 100 key players defining the future of the formats business, publishing on C21Media.net across the year and culminating in the publication of the C21 FORMATS100 ALMANAC at Content Europe 2027. This initiative is designed to provide a roadmap for the evolution of the formats genre and get inside the minds of some of the most creative players in the sector.
