Reg Grundy transformed a radio game show into a TV empire. Picture: Supplied.

Australia’s first international TV mogul was famous for holing up for weeks at a time in an LA hotel room, watching show after show to find the ‘inspiration’ for his own Aussie formats here.

“When Reg was building his company it was really game on, you could literally go to the US, look at a show and bring the tape home and do your own interpretation,” said Brian Walsh, Foxtel’s executive director of television who worked with Grundy on Neighbours.

“They were pretty wild days in television in Australia. We were so isolated I don’t think the Americans were even awake to the fact of what was happening.”

The hugely talented Reg Grundy who created a TV empire. Pictutre: Supplied.Source:News Corp Australia

But Grundy, who died last week in Bermuda aged 92, didn’t just copy overseas formats — he improved them. Later, licensed shows including Family Feud, Wheel of Fortune and The Price Is Right were all tailored for the Australian market by Grundy and his game show guru Bill Mason. They even managed to enhance NBC game show Sale of the Century to the point where NBC bought their revamped version back off them.

“It was absolutely a (taking) coal to Newcastle situation,” said Andrew Brooke, former executive vice president of light entertainment, Grundy Europe. “An Australian producer, selling a US show back to the US — you’d tell them they were dreaming but Reg made it happen.”

So how did Grundy transform the radio game show he’d dreamt up while unemployed (Wheel of Fortune, not the US version) into a worldwide TV empire with production in 18 countries?
The Grundy Organisation used to bill itself as “The world’s most prolific program producers” and its success can be seen in the fact Family Feud, Neighbours and Wentworth (based on Prisoner) remain on air today two decades after the company was sold.

Grundy sold his revamped version of Sale of the Century back to the US.Source:News Limited

Grundy — or RG as he was known to his friends — helped pioneer the adaptation of formats to Australian and then he took Australian formats to the world. Today the biggest shows in every country are international formats — there are 62 versions of The Voice and 40-odd MasterChefs.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Grundy leveraged his success with Sale of the Century and Neighbours to set up shop in Europe, New Zealand, South Africa, Chile, Indonesia, Paraguay, Hong Kong, the US and UK.

“He had a saying, that we were ‘internationally parochial’” explained Tim Hughes, a former director of Grundy Worldwide. “In every country he opened up he’d be local, adapt the format or the scripts to suit the country and hire local actors.”

Grundy’s shows — Sale of the Century, Sons and Daughters and The Restless Years and the like — were tailored to each country’s cultural cues and language, while using the same basic formats, characters and stories.

“The Restless Years was taken into the Netherlands in 1990 and it’s still a top rating show today,” said Brooke, adding Grundy taught his partner on that show, Endemol, how to become an international TV giant. There were plenty of original shows too created for local markets including around 20 UK productions.

Reg Grundy pictured with his wife Joy Chambers. Picture: Supplied.Source:News Limited

A key part of Grundy’s success were the innovative, high volume, low cost production techniques they’d developed in Australia. At one point Grundy’s was making five hour long episodes — and five half-hour episodes — of The Price is Right every week. “The Americans were astounded at quality of production and couldn’t understand how we did that,” said Brooke. Those techniques saw them welcomed with open arms by Europe’s former state owned broadcasters: “No one knew how to make five episodes a week of drama,” he said.

Despite saying in 1980 that “consciously or unconsciously I’m a plagiarist” Grundy was always innovative, right from the moment his radio game show Wheel Of Fortune became the first program to be stripped across five nights a week, with Grundy himself as host in 1960.

Its success led to his game show empire: The Marriage Game, Blind Date, Personality Squares, Perfect Match, Blankety Blanks, Beat the Odds and Temptation among others.

He never underestimated the public. “If you treat the mass audience with contempt I think you are almost certain to fail,” he said. “Others have treated game shows as rubbish and they have failed. We treated them seriously and were rewarded with success.”

Rowena Wallace with Peter Phelps and Ally Fowler from Sons and Daughters, 1982. Picture: Supplied.Source:News Limited

Two of his great strengths were his incredible abilities as a salesman and his ability to surround himself with the most talented people: Bill Mason for game shows, Reg Watson for drama, who created many of their best loved shows. Drama production began with Class of ’74 — a daring show with teacher/student affairs, pornography and devil worship. For the show, Grundy borrowed and improved another idea from the US, where daily soap operas had become an important anchor for daytime programming.

“What Grundy did was lift that idea and move it to prime time,” Walsh said of how Class of ‘74 was the first prime time drama to play five nights a week anywhere in the world.

“That was the beginning of strip programming as we know it now, with Neighbours and Home and Away becoming very popular. At the time it was quite a breakthrough.”

Hit after hit followed including The Young Doctors, Glenview High, The Restless Years and Neighbours. Many screened around the world.

“Prior to Hector (Crawford) and RG all we saw were big budget US drama across all channels,” explained Rick Maier, Ten’s head of Drama who worked for Grundy’s in the 1970s. “It was a genuine fight to ask networks to pay higher costs for our stories.”

Actor Maggie Kirkpatrick as 'The Freak' in TV show Prisoner. Picture: Supplied.Source:News Corp Australia

Grundy’s groundbreaking drama Prisoner, focusing on lower class women at a time when TV was all about the rich and beautiful — became the first Aussie TV drama sold in America in 1979 a couple of years after RG had set up shop there. (He also got US productions Scrabble, Time Machine, Scattergories and Bruce Forsyth’s Hot Streak on US TV).

“I think he was always ahead of the curve,” said Bevan Lee, creator of A Place to Call Home, who worked on Prisoner and Sons and Daughters.

“We lived in a world where no one conceived our TV would sell overseas but he did.”

Lee said the best thing he learnt at Grundy’s was to always write for the audience.

“Prisoner had a message and broke new ground it its portrayal of women, but they didn’t set out to do that, they set out to entertain,” he said, an approach he’s maintained with APTCH which addresses issues like homophobia and racism, but always keeps its primary goal melodramatic entertainment.

“Story and entertainment first, message second,” he said.

Walsh said Australian television owes RG a huge debt.

“He knew how the Australian consumer wanted to be entertained and the talent that he developed both in front and behind the camera is the great legacy that he leaves,” he said.

Neighbours in 1986, Stefan Dennis, Paul Keane, Peter O'Brien and Alan Dale. Picture: Supplied.Source:Supplied

Grundy’s greatest hits

Prisoner — Inspired by a British drama, Prisoner told the story of the women of Cell Block H and ran from 1979 to 1986, becoming a hit around the world and it lives on as Wentworth.

Sale of the Century — Grundy revamped Temptation as Sale of The Century in 1980 and it ran in various guises for almost three decades. He sold the format back to the US in 1983 where it ran for six years.

Blankety Blanks — Personality driven panel show — based on filling in the blanks with innuendo — screened from 1977-78 hosted by Graham Kennedy. Based on a US show, it spawned a UK version and two remakes in Australia.

Sons and Daughters — Spanning 972 episodes between 1981 and 1987 the soap screened around the world and made a huge star out of Rowena Wallace as “Pat the rat”.

Neighbours — The best ever ad for Australia became a huge hit in the UK in the late 1980s and was responsible for the careers of many huge Aussie actors. Sold to 60 countries it’s still going strong 7360 episodes later.