Why has the courage to invent original stories for television disappeared?
If you look closely at what is being broadcast on television channels around the world, you’ll notice something strange: original stories have all but vanished. Most major entertainment programs, game shows, and drama series are not the creations of the countries airing them; they are simply licensed copies based on formats that have already proven successful elsewhere.
Note: The image above was generated using artificial intelligence as a visual representation of this global industry of repackaging ideas.
___The mechanism is straightforward and operates globally, from Hollywood to television networks across Europe and Asia. When one country develops a successful concept, producers in other nations purchase the rights the license to it. They then take the pre-existing framework the characters, the rules of the game, or the narrative arc and have local actors or hosts adapt it for their own audience and language.
A striking example that caught my attention comes from my own country: the series Clanul ("The Clan"). At first glance, it appears to be a Romanian action drama about criminals and police, rooted directly in our own local reality. In truth, however, it is based on a license purchased for a Turkish series titled Içerde, which itself drew inspiration from the famous Hollywood film The Departed —a movie that was, in turn, a remake of a Hong Kong film. Essentially, the same story featuring separated brothers and undercover police has traveled through four different countries, being reimagined for each one’s specific language and culture.
and the resemblance to the Turkish series....and of course The Departed (2005)
On the surface, this seems like a sound business move for television networks. Why risk millions on a brand-new script written by an unknown, when you could buy a format that has already been a massive hit elsewhere? It’s a safe bet, with minimal risk regarding audience reception.
But the real problem is that the international TV industry has become lazy and manipulative. Instead of fostering pure creativity, local writers and producers are reduced to mere copyists or high-end translators. The difficult, risky work of inventing something original from scratch gets lost along the way, as everyone prefers to buy ready-made content imported from abroad.
The result is that, on screens across the globe, we see the same stories and the same ideas simply repackaged in a different language with different actors. When everything becomes a copy of a copy, originality vanishes entirely, and television turns into a factory for reheated leftovers.
This phenomenon isn't just local... it has evolved into a global industry centered on repackaging second-hand ideas. From hit medical dramas like The Good Doctor (adapted from South Korea) to spy series like Homeland (adapted from Israel), major networks prefer to import pre-tested scripts rather than give a chance to a local creator. As for entertainment shows from The Voice to Big Brother it’s all essentially a fast-food franchise model: you purchase a license from the Dutch or the South Koreans, and then simply swap out the studio set. The industry is full of such carbon-copy licenses, and often we don’t even realize that our favorite show or series is merely a translation of a format created thousands of kilometers away.
If you want to see what this large-scale machine looks like and how it has functioned for decades within international cinema, you can watch this video, which reviews dozens of classic examples ranging from successful remakes to complete failures: Top 40 Best and Worst Movie Remakes of All Time
If you know of other such titles series, programs, or TV shows that seemed original but turned out to be nothing more than copies purchased from abroad at a high cost leave a comment below.
