The industry has had its ups and downs over the last couple of years as Covid-19 affected every aspect of life, but Avi Armoza, founder and CEO of Armoza Formats, part of ITV Studios, is starting to see business pick back up again. Fortunately for the format business, sales generally remained stable throughout the pandemic, according to Armoza, something that other sectors of the media industry may not be lucky enough to say. \u201cThe big change,\u201d he notes, \u201cwas the ability to bring and sell very new ideas.\u201d Broadcasters and platforms wanted to \u201cgo safe on existing titles\u201d and had \u201cless appetite to launch and bring new shows.\u201d<\/p>\n
Part of this, Armoza believes, is due to the lack of in-person markets. \u201cAt those events, you were able to feel the [pulse] of the market,\u201d he says. \u201cYou were able to get an idea of what the major trends were. There was a platform to launch new shows.\u201d Many markets held scaled-down digital versions, but they were not quite the same; some \u201cthings you cannot do by one-on-one Zoom pitching.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of the formats that buyers were picking up, game shows were particularly popular for several reasons\u2014they are easy to incorporate in a daily strip and can be cost-effective, as \u201cyou can get into a studio and shoot three, four, five episodes a day,\u201d Armoza says. Additionally, they appeal to a wider audience, something broadcasters desired as part \u201cof the sociological trends over the pandemic, [leading to] the need for family viewing.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2022, things are starting to shift. \u201cIt\u2019s all coming down to the hope of everyone that we are at the end of the pandemic and life will slowly, hopefully, come to be normal again,\u201d he says. \u201cBroadcasters are aware of the fact that they exhausted their current slate of shows, very much in the last two years.\u201d Now, they need new programming to keep their audiences entertained. Across all genres and time slots, \u201cwe see increasing demand and a search for new titles,\u201d Armoza notes. \u201cEverybody is looking for something that is noisy, something that stands out of the crowd, something that will be fresh.\u201d<\/p>\n
Broadcasters are also looking for cost-effective solutions in order to compete with streamers, Armoza says. As an example, he notes that Armoza Formats is selling technology alongside its formats, such as the CGI-based set of Family Piggy Bank<\/em>, to make the production of adaptations easier.<\/p>\n With buyers\u2019 post-pandemic needs in consideration, Armoza believes that the base for success in the format industry over the next year \u201cwill be the ability to create new shows, bring new creativity and find new production solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Avi Armoza, founder and CEO of Armoza Formats, on what’s to come in the format business. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1412,"featured_media":8722,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[68,69],"tags":[103,178],"class_list":["post-8721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-profiles","category-top-stories","tag-armoza-formats","tag-avi-armoza","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"\n