Hello, 'Good Bye!'.(British and American television programs)

Anne Robinson is a BBC cash cow dressed in black leather. Every week millions of Brits tune in to see her ritually humiliate guests on her hit game show, "Weakest Link." Part dominatrix and part nanny, the Robinson persona has spawned Web sites and dance records. Her catchphrase--"You are the weakest link! Goodbye!"--has been borrowed by just about everyone, including Prime Minister Tony Blair. Now, Americans are lining up for a whipping, too. The NBC network debuted "Weakest Link" this month to a swirl of publicity for the imperious Ms. Robinson, who is now commuting across the Atlantic to film two versions of the show. Neither nation can get enough. The BBC will start broadcasting the American version (in addition to its own) this Friday.

It's an amazing role reversal. Americans dominate the global markets for television, and tend to claim credit for all its creative innovations. But British influence on American TV goes back to the idea for Archie Bunker, the iconic Everyman of the 1970s, and has never been stronger than it is today. Americans invented game shows, true, but it's the British who are putting real people into ever more sensational games. Many of the top U.S. shows are based on "formats" or plots created by British producers, from the contests of the fittest on "Survivor" (CBS), to the Marine drills on "Boot Camp" (Fox). On "Weakest Link," they walk away with up to $1 million if they can weather Robinson's abuse and outwit the other guests. Overall British exports of formats--ideas for shows that can be customized for foreign markets--jumped 14 percent last year. Flush with success, British producers are setting up "incubators" to grow new ideas for the U.S. market.

This boomlet speaks volumes about the commercialization of British TV. After multichannel television arrived in the late 1980s, the landscape changed. BSkyB and others introduced new channels, many showing cheap American reruns. To compete, major networks had to come up with more- creative local shows. "It's the reason that ITV [one of the five major British channels] shows more 'Coronation Street' and less 'Colombo'," says Rupert Dilnott-Cooper, CEO of Carlton International Media.

Then Margaret Thatcher entered the plot. Early in her government, a major network sent a crew of 20 to film a simple interview. As the story goes, Thatcher saw this as a symptom of bloat in public TV, and her disgust led to a 1990 law requiring big broadcasters to buy at least 25 percent of their programming from independent producers. By 1999 the law had exceeded its goal: 44 percent of British programming was created by indies, which would revolutionize British television both at home and as Americans know it.

Until recently, British shows in the United States were confined to costume dramas, wildlife shows and quirky comedies broadcast in the high-culture ghetto of public television. U.S. networks stuck to their own formulaic sitcoms and dramas, until adventurous new cable channels started stealing their viewers. The networks started looking for hits in Britain, and in 1999 ABC took the first big step, licensing the format of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" from a London indie, Celador Productions. Other European producers, including Endemol of the Netherlands, would follow, but the invasion is mainly British. "If we'd gone straight to the U.S. networks with 'Millionaire' without doing it first in the U.K., they'd have said no," says Ellis Watson, managing director of Celador. "America is not the bravest of nations when it comes to programming. They'll watch how something is done in the U.K., market the heck out of it, then pretend like it was theirs to begin with."

That's the whole idea. The Americans did it first with game shows like "Family Feud" and "The Price Is Right," selling those programs around the world, and allowing producers to create a local version with local stars. As one CBS insider puts it, the rest of the world used to be "just one big export market." But after ...