The scripted format market has a winner, and it's not the kind of show that wins Emmys. Ghosts, the British sitcom about a young couple living in a manor house haunted by spirits from different historical eras, took the top spot in K7's annual "Tracking the Scripted Giants" report, having been adapted four times in the past 18 months in Australia, Germany, France, and Greece. The original UK series wrapped years ago. The CBS adaptation is already in its fourth season. And international buyers are still lining up to license the format.
The reason is structural. Ghosts is a comedy with a premise that works in any language, a cast structure that scales to local talent pools, and episodic storytelling that doesn't require viewers to remember what happened three seasons ago. It's a sitcom engine with interchangeable parts. You can swap out the British aristocrat ghost for a French revolutionary, the 1980s politician for a German industrialist, and the format still functions. The premise is the product. That's what makes it valuable.
International buyers have learned the hard way that prestige dramas don't travel. A character study rooted in American workplace culture or British class dynamics often collapses when transplanted. The nuance that makes a show critically acclaimed in its home market becomes a localization nightmare. Subtlety doesn't survive translation. High-concept premises do. A haunted house is a haunted house in any country. A workplace comedy about a documentary crew filming a paper company works anywhere there are offices. A mockumentary about a dysfunctional family can be recast with local archetypes without losing the structure.
This is why streaming platforms struggle to replicate the international reach of formatted television. Netflix's strategy has been to produce local originals in dozens of countries, but that model requires constant content creation. A format, by contrast, is a blueprint that generates dozens of series from a single creative template. The economics are entirely different. One successful format can spawn 10 adaptations, each producing 50+ episodes, all paying licensing fees back to the original creators and distributors.
The Ghosts model also solves a problem that has plagued international co-productions: creative control. When a show is adapted rather than co-produced, each market gets full creative autonomy within the format's structure. The French version can be as French as it wants. The Australian version can lean into local humor. There's no committee trying to make a show that works everywhere and ends up working nowhere. The format provides guardrails, not mandates.
What's notable about the current format market is that comedy is dominating in a way it hasn't in decades. Drama has become the domain of co-productions and international partnerships, where the financial risk is too high for a single broadcaster. Comedy, especially high-concept sitcoms, remains a format business. And the formats that succeed are the ones with the clearest templates. The Office worked because the mockumentary structure and workplace setting were universally adaptable. Ugly Betty worked because the fashion industry outsider narrative translated across cultures. Ghosts works because a haunted house is a haunted house.
The industry's shift toward format-driven comedy also reflects a broader economic reality: production costs have made original drama prohibitively expensive, even for well-funded streamers. A format comes with a proof of concept. It's already been tested in at least one market. The creative kinks have been worked out. The episode structure is proven. That de-risks the investment in a way that original development never can.
The prestige drama model — the kind of show that wins awards and generates critical acclaim — has always been a poor fit for international adaptation. Those shows succeed because of specificity: a particular writer's voice, a particular cultural moment, a particular performance. Strip that away to adapt it for another market, and you're left with a premise that doesn't justify the effort. High-concept comedy, by contrast, is designed to be modular. The specificity is in the characters and the jokes, not the structure. That's what makes it exportable.
Ghosts will likely continue adding adaptations over the next few years. The format has proven itself in multiple markets, which makes it an even safer bet for broadcasters in smaller territories. And as long as international buyers prioritize formats that come with clear templates and proven economics, high-concept comedy will keep winning. Prestige drama might get the awards, but it's the sitcom with the haunted house that pays the bills.
