Tokyo Broadcasting System's U.S. Push Signals a Serious Bet on Japanese Format DNA
TL;DR: TBS hired veteran unscripted exec Elwin de Groot as its first full-time senior development executive in Los Angeles after an 18-month advisory period. The move signals TBS isn't just licensing formats anymore — they want creative ownership of their IP in America, with "American Ninja Warrior" Season 18 launching this summer and the skateboarding format "Kasso" already staging U.S. live events.
Japan's Tokyo Broadcasting System has hired Elwin de Groot as senior unscripted development executive in Los Angeles, and it reads less like routine staffing and more like a deliberate signal that TBS believes it has more hit formats waiting to break in America beyond American Ninja Warrior.
Here's what actually matters: de Groot didn't just accept a job offer cold. He spent the previous 18 months advising TBS on how to build its Los Angeles office from scratch. That's not a typical hiring trajectory. It means TBS road-tested the relationship, built the infrastructure, and only then committed the full-time role. They wanted to know if de Groot could actually deliver before betting serious resources on his vision.
Who de Groot Is, and Why TBS Specifically Wanted Him
De Groot's résumé isn't just long — it's strategically built. He started at Endemol Shine (the company that essentially wrote the modern format playbook), then moved through Armoza Formats, where he co-created Fox's The Four and NBC's I Can Do That. Those titles matter. The Four ran two seasons on Fox with audiences in the tens of millions at a time when everyone assumed music competitions were dead on linear TV.
From there: Talpa Media, All3Media's Optomen Productions, Sony Pictures Television, MTV Entertainment Studios (where he co-developed All Star Shore for Paramount+), and most recently Youngest Media Group — where he landed partnerships with both LeBron James's SpringHill Company and Reese Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine.
That last detail is the tell. SpringHill and Hello Sunshine don't sign development deals casually. They're selective. De Groot getting both signaled genuine market credibility, not just a resume that looks good on paper.
Goshu Segawa, TBS International's chief product officer, put it simply: "Elwin has spent decades proving he has both instincts and relationships. He has a proven track record of taking formats from concept to international hit."
What TBS Is Actually Building in Los Angeles
The LA expansion operates on two tracks simultaneously. De Groot is handling original IP development — formats invented specifically for American audiences. Shuji Maeda, TBS's sales and development executive, recently relocated from Tokyo headquarters to handle partnerships and distribution. That's not accidental. The two-person structure suggests TBS wants both creative innovation and business infrastructure in place at once.
Here's the current TBS footprint in the U.S.:
- "American Ninja Warrior" co-produces with A. Smith & Co. for NBC, entering Season 18 in summer 2026
- "Kasso," an original TBS skateboarding format, completed three broadcast seasons and staged its first U.S. live event — "Kasso Fest" — in Long Beach this past March
- De Groot's mandate covers both developing new IP and adapting existing TBS properties for domestic market viability
What's striking is the structure. TBS isn't simply licensing formats to American producers and collecting royalties. They want creative ownership. That's a fundamentally different ambition, and it requires a different kind of executive than a licensing manager.
Kasso: The Proof-of-Concept Format Nobody's Talking About
Most coverage glosses over "Kasso," and that's a mistake. A Japanese skateboarding entertainment format that completed three broadcast seasons and already staged a live U.S. event isn't a tentative experiment. It's a market test that apparently worked.
Skateboarding's been culturally ascendant in America since its 2021 Olympic debut in Tokyo (the symbolism of a Japanese broadcaster owning the format IP for a sport that entered the Games on Japanese soil isn't lost on anyone paying attention), and the demographics that follow skate culture — younger, digitally native, platform-agnostic — are exactly who traditional broadcast networks have been hemorrhaging. If TBS can package "Kasso" for an American streamer or cable partner, they'd be offering something the domestic format market doesn't have: a Japanese-originated, live-event-capable, youth-skewing unscripted franchise with production proof behind it.
I keep coming back to this detail because it reveals TBS's actual strategy. They're not testing the American market with small pilots. They're bringing formats that already work in Japan and seeing if they can translate — without diluting what makes them interesting.
Movie OTT's streaming availability tracker doesn't yet list "Kasso" on any confirmed U.S. platform. That announcement, when it comes, will likely follow de Groot's first development cycle in his new full-time role.
What De Groot Actually Said (and What It Reveals)
"I am thrilled to be working with TBS to expand its presence in the U.S. market," de Groot said in a statement reported by Variety. "Their impressive catalog is bold and distinctive, and their creative vision continues to push boundaries in the format space."
That second sentence does real work. "Push boundaries" isn't executive polish. It's a signal that TBS doesn't want to compete on safe, proven templates. They want to develop formats with genuine creative risk built in.
Why This Matters for Indian and Global Streaming Audiences
For audiences outside the United States, TBS's expansion has ripple effects worth tracking. India has significant appetite for Japanese-originated content — partly driven by anime's enormous Netflix India and Prime Video India footprint, partly by growing interest in Japanese reality and variety formats among younger viewers.
American Ninja Warrior already airs in India through various cable and streaming windows. Here's where TBS-connected content currently lands across Indian platforms:
- Netflix India: Carries select Japanese reality content; no confirmed "Kasso" listing yet
- Prime Video India: Active Japanese content slate, primarily drama and anime
- JioCinema: Expanding non-fiction and global sports-entertainment catalog
- Sony LIV: Strongest existing relationship with U.S. network content (given Sony Pictures Television's production ties)
- Hotstar / Disney+ India: Primarily sports and Disney-aligned originals
The Sony Pictures Television connection in de Groot's background matters here. Sony's existing distribution infrastructure in India could become a natural pipeline for TBS-developed formats. Hard to say if that's the plan, but the relationship history makes it plausible. Movie OTT will continue tracking platform announcements as TBS's LA office scales up.
The Next 18 Months: What Actually Matters
The honest measure of this expansion isn't the hire itself. It's what gets greenlit.
Watch for:
- Development announcements in late 2026 or early 2027 as de Groot's first original IP pitches move through network and streamer development pipelines
- A "Kasso" U.S. platform deal — the clearest signal that TBS can move format IP from broadcast origination to streaming distribution without losing what makes it work
- American Ninja Warrior Season 18 performance this summer — strong ratings give TBS leverage in any new U.S. co-production conversations
- Additional Japanese exec relocations to the LA office, following Maeda's move from Tokyo
The format market is crowded. American networks don't lack unscripted pitches. What TBS is betting on is that Japanese creative instincts — leaning toward spectacle, physical commitment, and genuinely inventive premise design — can cut through where domestic formats have become formulaic.
The Bigger Picture: Why This Hire Matters Beyond the Trade
Look — most coverage will frame this as routine expansion. Executive joins company. Company grows. Standard item.
The more interesting read is what TBS's American push says about the global format economy right now. Companies that own original format IP increasingly hold long-term leverage over production houses that adapt other people's ideas. TBS already proved the model with American Ninja Warrior — 18 seasons and counting, with the original Sasuke having run since 1997 across more than 40 countries, making it arguably the most widely licensed physical game show format in television history. Replicating that with even one new format in the next five years would transform their U.S. business fundamentally.
What most trade write-ups won't say plainly: TBS's real competition here isn't other Japanese media companies expanding westward — it's the Korean format machine, specifically CJ ENM and its MBC-originated properties, which have dominated the global unscripted conversation since Physical: 100 became Netflix's breakout reality hit in 2023. TBS is arriving late to a fight the Koreans are already winning, and de Groot's hire is an admission that Japanese format IP can't cross oceans on pedigree alone anymore. It needs an American translator with a Rolodex.
De Groot's hire is TBS saying, publicly, that they believe they have more American Ninja Warriors in their catalog. Whether they're right is the only question that matters. For updates on any confirmed U.S. or international platform deals as they're announced, Movie OTT tracks TBS-connected titles across streaming regions.
