This paper examines the limited, but growing, body of case law in various jurisdictions which has examined the question of copyright protection for TV formats. Two broad approaches can be identified on the part of the courts involved: (1) to try to draw analogies or parallels between TV formats and plays or scripted dramas; or (2) to examine the nature of the TV format on its own merits, in terms of its original and identifiable structure and fixed elements. The first approach makes it very difficult to find copyright protection; the second has borne fruit in some of the cases. One possible reason for these divergent approaches may derive from the way in which the definition in the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works of 1886 of copyright ‘works’ has been implemented into national legislation. Where the national legislation defines a copyright work as one of a limited list of categories, the courts have been forced to take the ‘dramatic work’-analogy approach: in other words, to try to shoe-horn TV formats into a particular pre-defined box. On the other hand, where national copyright acts have more faithfully followed the Berne Convention illustrative list, there seems to be less of an intellectual challenge in finding possible copyright protection. This paper examines whether there are patterns that can be followed and, without moving into the subsequent issue of copyright infringement, the implications for TV format producers and distributors at the licensing stage.