Gaming the System

Whether you're jammin' with Jimmy Fallon or getting personal with Oscar De La Hoya, Toby Gorman hopes his shows are giving you goosebumps.

Long before Gorman became president of Universal Television Alternative Studio (UTAS), his father was directing game shows in London ... and Gorman wasn't interested in the business. That changed in 1995, when CBS's Late Show with David Letterman relocated for a week to a BBC studio in London — next door to the one where Gorman, age fifteen, was supposed to be helping on his dad's show.

"I snuck in and was suddenly with Elton John, Pierce Brosnan and David Duchovny," Gorman recalls. "They chatted to me like it was normal. It showed me another side to these figures that I loved — and have tried to extract for audiences through my career. Jimmy Fallon's That's My Jam [NBC] is a great example of celebrities showing their human side, being self-deprecating and having a good time — just like we would at a game night."

Gorman crossed the pond to work on Fremantle's Celebrity Family Feud, then on NBC, in 2008 and segued to American Idol, then on Fox, from 2009 to 2011. He has since overseen competition shows featuring Amy Poehler and Maya Rudolph (Peacock's Baking It), Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson (NBC's The Titan Games) and many others.

With an eye for spotting formats that hit both nationally and abroad (NBC's The Wall is now in thirty territories), the man who oversees UTAS's development, production, business and creative affairs trusts his gut and relies on three key ingredients: "The game needs to be good," adding, "You need great play-along, and these days, you need to create a vibe that makes people wish they were there."

Since UTAS became part of the larger Universal Studio Group in 2020, Gorman has expanded the division into true crime and documentary. The studio collaborated with two-time Emmy winner and 2013 Emmy Hall of Fame honoree Dick Wolf to create Oxygen's Blood & Money, NBC's LA Fire and Rescue and other unscripted series. The new Oscar De La Hoya documentary The Golden Boy, for HBO Sports, is creating buzz. To make NBC's The Americas, a ten-part series narrated by Tom Hanks that will premiere next spring, UTAS teamed with Emmy-winning wildlife producer Mike Gunton (Planet Earth II).

"Our output more than doubled last year because we're enjoying these new genres," Gorman says, crediting the studio's success with powerful partnerships.

Whatever the genre, UTAS shows share a common thread. "They are all emotive and, hopefully, something you're going to talk about tomorrow," Gorman says. "And if I can make you laugh and cry with our projects, then I'm winning."

This article originally appeared in emmy magazine issue #9, 2023, under the same title.