Showcase: Global Agency

Over the last ten years, Izzet Pinto, founder and CEO of Global Agency, has created more than ten formats. The concept for Match the Family, a fresh family-centric game show that the company is launching to the global market, came from a very personal source of inspiration. “I have a son, and the question of who he looks like has always been a topic of conversation in the family,” Pinto explains. “Some say his mother, some say his father, some say neither of us. So, it has always created funny discussions. The core idea of the format was created based on curiosity and presumptions.”

The game show challenges two teams of three players to identify the family members of a person in the studio. Intelligence, quick wits and gut instinct are crucial to pick out the relative from five candidates, build earnings over five rounds and win a place in the money-spinning final.

“Usually, you see competitors competing throughout the games, and you just take one side and follow the games,” Pinto says. “But in this show, as a viewer, you also play along with the game and make your guesses throughout the show. This makes the show more entertaining and interactive.”

Over the five rounds, prize money rises from $5,000 to $50,000 as teams first pick out the person’s father with the help of clues about his profession and interests. Competing at high speed, teams jump in with their guesses, boosting their money pot with right answers and reducing it with incorrect answers.

In the next four rounds, they must identify the person’s mother, sibling, child and partner. Teams can use three wildcards during the show. The first of these is a photo wildcard, in which childhood photos of the person in the studio and their relative are shown. The second allows the team to get close to the person and the five potential relatives. The third wildcard allows them to hear the voice of the real family member.

The team with the most money gets to play in the final quick-fire quiz, answering five personal questions about the family within 150 seconds.

“Since the basic structure of the format is very simple, it could be produced identically in each territory,” Pinto says of the adaptation potential. “If the broadcaster prefers to air in access prime, the set can be smaller; if aired in prime time, the set can be bigger. That should be the only difference.”

The global resonance of the format is rooted in its central theme: family. “Since it is a family-oriented show and the main topic is matching the family members, it is a universal discussion of who looks similar to whom,” says Pinto.

“It absolutely fits every territory in the world,” he adds. “But our biggest sales targets are the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Germany, Italy and Spain.”

In terms of scheduling flexibility, Global Agency sees this as a prime-time play, with a big money prize, in larger territories such as the U.S. and the U.K. In smaller territories, though, it could be produced for daily access prime time.

Match the Family comes at a time when game shows are as popular as ever in the global format landscape—with broadcasters seeking out reliable yet noisy entertainment and viewers perennially invested in the genre. “In most game shows, viewers prefer to watch the gameplay until the end to determine who the winner is or whether the contestant wins the money,” says Pinto. “It creates an interaction in which you put yourself in the contestant’s shoes. You get happy if they win and upset if they lose. As long as you create an emotional attachment, the format works.”

The format perfectly aligns with the wider Global Agency format catalog, says Pinto. “In the last three years, we have brought big prime-time shows to the markets, but for a long time, we have been looking for a daily strip format, which is a perfect match for our catalog.”

See Global Agency’s Showcase here.