Global Agency’s Izzet Pinto on Creating & Selling New Ideas

Just a few minutes into a conversation with Izzet Pinto, the founder and CEO of Global Agency, his passion for the entertainment business becomes palpable. The company, which distributes scripted dramas worldwide, also licenses hit formats, several of which Pinto created. He values his team’s input in the decision-making process. As he explains to TV Formats, belief in an idea and its careful execution are among the keys to offering buyers successful formats.

TV FORMATS: Global Agency is well known for its dramas that have traveled around the world, but, early on, you also started developing formats.
PINTO: We are well known for our dramas because we were the pioneers in bringing Turkish dramas to the world. We started as a format company back in 2006. When I started the company, I had only one TV format in my catalog. I started with that format, and it really brought us luck—maybe even brought us where we are today. It was a wedding show called Perfect Bride. After that, we stepped into the drama world, and that got huge. But I’m always a big fan of formats. I always pay attention to representing formats. I have created more than a dozen. Creating formats is my biggest hobby and definitely my biggest passion.

TV FORMATS: How have your teams been able to identify ideas that can travel internationally as a format?
PINTO: I have six sales directors in the company who have been working for Global Agency for more than ten years, so they have a great deal of experience. When we are approached by a creator, I send the [show’s] trailer to our head of acquisitions, the six people on the sales team and myself. So, we have eight people voting. We need six votes to get the representation, not four or five, but six, because I have to make sure that the majority of us believe in this. When six out of eight people believe in a project, I think it has a chance. Then we take on representation of the format and do our best to license it around the world.

TV FORMATS: Would you give some examples of how your teams have adapted a format to a particular market and audience?
PINTO: There’s a good example of that—a format that we represent called Shopping Monsters. It’s about five ladies going shopping with a budget, and they score each other. It’s a very fun format. However, when I first watched it, I didn’t like it at all. But I thought, We have a democratic team, so I should ask them. The majority of the team loved it! So, we took on representation, and it has been our best-selling format ever: in Germany, 3,000 episodes; in France, 2,000 episodes. That’s how we do it. Even though I’m the owner of the company, that doesn’t mean that if I like something, it will sell, or if I don’t like something, it will not sell. Whenever we are pitched a project, we have a brainstorming session on the format. Then we’ll see how it works.

TV FORMATS: Once you’ve sold the format, what support does Global Agency give the broadcaster or the production company to develop and produce the format?
PINTO: When we license the show, we make sure that the creators visit the set at least two or three times—once in the preproduction stage, once before we go on air and once if the client is not too happy with the ratings. [In that case,] we jump on a plane and go and see if there’s something that they didn’t see and skipped, and if we can fix it. So, we support them a minimum of two or three times. We also have an expert on the team who usually writes the bible. The bibles are between 120 and 150 pages, extremely detailed and really help a lot. We do our best to support them. I’m very happy to say that at least 80 percent of the formats we have sold have worked abroad.

TV FORMATS: What are some of the most successful ones?
PINTO: So, for example, My Wife Rules, a cooking show; Keep Your Light Shining, a singing show; Good Singers, also a singing show, and My Style Rocks, a fashion show. Our best-selling genres so far have been lifestyle—shopping, cooking or singing. These three genres have been the bestsellers in our catalog.

TV FORMATS: Well, certainly lifestyle and cooking are universal themes, and audiences love to watch people sing!
PINTO: Yes, exactly. And if it’s a good show, it really works.

TV FORMATS: I hear that some companies are having more difficulty introducing a new idea as opposed to a show that is already working in other countries. What’s your experience been with new ideas?
PINTO: We are one of the rare companies that believes in paper formats. Whether it’s coming from me personally, someone from our team or third-party formats, if we believe in a project, we invest in it, we shoot a pilot, either in Turkey or abroad, and we spend a big marketing campaign for it. It’s all about one country picking up the paper format. If it’s a success, then it travels the world. We have always believed in paper formats and will continue believing in ideas, because everything starts with an idea. When you look at the big formats today, [they all started] as an idea. Then someone believed in it, either shot a pilot or commissioned it. People forget that everything starts as paper. Many people say, Oh, I don’t believe in paper formats, or, We will not invest in paper formats. Maybe I have an entrepreneurial spirit. I have always believed in ideas, and I love the challenge. I love taking an idea and making it big. So, that’s what we do. We invest a lot in an idea and put our best into it, whether it works or not. But I want to do my best, and we need some time to see the progress.

TV FORMATS: Do you have new formats that you’d like to mention?
PINTO: Yes. There have been two formats in development. One is called Smart Race, a quiz game show, and I’m very excited about it. Maybe the reason I’m excited is that I created it! Another one, which can be really huge, I can bet on it, is called The MashUp. These are the two major launches coming in early 2026.

TV FORMATS: I love your optimism, and I’m not hearing much of that from the market. Is this part of your nature, or do you feel that the formats market is moving along rather well?
PINTO: Optimism is one of my characteristics, that’s for sure. You can’t get anywhere with negativity. You have to deliver your best, and then if it doesn’t work, you have to say, OK, next. Don’t cry about it. Just do your best. If it doesn’t work, keep on creating. That’s what we always do. I love my job. I feel so lucky that I am in the entertainment business. There is no other business in the world that is more exciting than this!