Key Points
Create excitement, buzz and anticipation for THE NEXT GREAT LEADER as a format with an extraordinary and unique insight into former world leaders.

• Generates media coverage with traditional television/entertainment and political media.
• All star judging panel – Four former national leaders (audience have the chance to see them out of their political context).
• The show will garner support from universities and the nation’s youth in general, particularly in those areas where auditions were held.
• It will also garner support from political experts, educators and politically minded people.

There are various ways in which this format can play-out. Details as follows;

One-off special:
As a one off hour long special the program is simple. Having eliminated a vast number of hopefuls, cutting the number to just four remaining candidates, the show plays out in front of a live in-house studio audience, the presenter, four judges and the competitors. The show is made up of four parts, whereby each contestant will be tested on various socio-political issues. Contestants will have the chance to get their viewpoints across, speaking individually and under the pressure of a debate; questions will also be put forward to the candidates by the judges. After each round the studio audience takes a vote on whom they believe to be the most worthy of the title of ‘The Next Great Leader’. However, it is only the final ballot that will count and will determine who the winner is. The audience was selected through COMPASS research to find the most politically widespread group of people, therefore eliminating any possibility of bias.

Six-parter:
This 6 Episode Network Event is packaged as weekly 1 hour episodes, including the Grand Studio Finale.   In episodes 2-6 all of the contestants face the following rounds;

-          The Speech
-          The Debate
-          The Crisis Round
-          Final Plea
-          Final Vote and results
-          Two contestants are voted off each show.

 Four-parter (Bulgaria):
 - 4 episodes of varying lengths (60-150 minutes per episode)
 - This version is the preferred international version of the format as it captured many of the strongest elements of the original Canadian one-off show while using the longer running time and episodic nature to build a national dialogue around the contest.
 - Key elements: transparency of auditions, high profile of the judges and on air talent, freedom of speech and expression for candidates, and entertainment production values throughout.

Show 1 - THE AUDITIONS
60 minutes live to tape (with tape inserts).
The structure of the first show is quite simple with a slickly produced auditions montage showing the highs and lows of the process.   The 12 finalists were then announced, each with a short video package and then a question and answer with the judges. This is their chance to introduce themselves to the voting public.
At the end of the show each of the 12 finalists was given a moment to make a final plea to the audience and votes were tabulated.

Show 2 - THE CRISIS ROUNDS
60 minutes live to tape (with tape inserts.) Here the tension heats up, through a series of taped segments and live interactions with the real leaders of the country. How would the candidates really fare in the shoes of the nation’s leaders?

Show 3 - THE DEBATES
90 minutes live with taped inserts. This begins with a 3 minute recap of the competition so far, then the elimination of the bottom 4, who are each given a chance for their final thoughts. The rest of the show is a series of debates that are done between 4 randomly drawn pairings of the contestants.   Each pairing is given a topic to debate by the judges, and the debates follow normal debate rules. A time limited 30 second speech to open, and then a free for all with final questions from the judges.

Show 4 - FINALE
2 hours 30 minutes (150 minutes) live with taped inserts. In the finale there is a recap of the competition to date, then the elimination of the bottom 4. The final 4 then compete in a round of debates, moderated by the judging panel of prominent politicians.  At the end of the show the winner is announced.

Two-parter (Germany):

(44 minutes taped, 120 minutes+ live)

In Germany the choice was made to run the show on two consecutive nights, with an audition program and then a live finals show.

Episode 1 - AUDITIONS
From the approximately 3000 finalists a smaller group was brought to Bonn from which 12 finalists were chosen.  In this first episode taped profiles of the candidates were intercut with the audition footage with the judges. At the end of the episode the 12 finalists were chosen. As in other countries, these represented a cross section of the political spectrum and a range of ethnic and economic backgrounds. A young black man, a single mother, someone who’s family hailed from Turkey.

Episode 2 - NATIONAL VOTE
Here the show, live from Berlin, stayed a bit closer to the format in Bulgaria and Canada.   There was a recap of the show from the night before.

The candidates were then presented to the audience (as in Canada and Bulgaria chosen by a polling firm) in 4 groups of three. After answering questions from the judges the audiences chose their favourite from each flight - leaving 4 candidates remaining.

The Germans chose not to do the CRISIS rounds from the Canadian show, out of concern for appearing to be too hard on the candidates. Instead they did a political trivia contest.

The candidates had all been given a challenge to do in the week before, to design a poster and to get signatures on a petition for their one big idea for Germany. These were played during the live show as taped inserts, along with short taped packages on German political history.

The four candidates were winnowed down from four to three to two during the broadcast, again through voting from the studio audience.

ZDF chose to eliminate the debates between candidates (again, their desire was to minimize some of the created conflict between the contestants in the Canadian format) but they did add a grilling of the last two candidates by Germany’s top political journalist.

The final challenge was for each candidate to make an appeal to the audience at home. 
The vote at home proved more popular than ZDF expected... over 130,000 people SMS voted in three minutes to determine the winner.