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Albert Moran, TV Format Mogul: Reg Grundy's Transnational Career. Intellect, 2013. ISBN 978-1-8415-0623-4
In Albert Moran's comprehensive account of the 'bold' career of Australian TV mogul, Reg Grundy, there are two telling moments. The first describes Grundy's initial trip to the United States in August 1966 when - in anticipation of British cultural theorist Raymond Williams - Grundy holed up in his hotel room and watched television (p. 90). While for Williams this produced the theory of flow, for Grundy this encounter was to inspire countless remakes of American quiz and game shows which he successfully re-packaged and sold on, long before the trade in TV formats had become formalised as a business. As it emerges, Grundy was an inveterate 'borrower' whose abilities to tweak a format to suit the audience made him one of the most successful television producers in Australian television history.
The second moment occurs in a comparison between Grundy's style and that of the rival production house headed by Hector Crawford and his sister Dorothy which specialised in drama production. While framed photographs of Hector and Dorothy adorned the lobby of their headquarters, Reg Grundy was all but invisible to his employees. Grundy always preferred to work from home (initially in Sydney) before relocating to Bermuda in 1984 for tax-related reasons but also as a base to build his global empire. This was a canny move. When Grundy retired in 1995, the sale of his business...