Amazon will order more of its shows straight-to-series in the future, studio chief and head of content Roy Price said Friday at the Edinburgh International Television Festival.
Pilots “sort of slow you down,” Price explained.
“It’s another 10 months,” he continued. “Between sitting at a table saying that’s an amazing idea for a TV show and having a TV show on the air, it’s normally 12-18 months. But with a pilot it’s two years.”
“The reality of the marketplace is it’s competitive and often you just have to go to series, both from a timing point of view and from a competitive point of view,” Price added. “We still have customer feedback, but will probably have fewer pilots for sure.”
Amazon generally ordered a batch of pilots, posting those for Prime subscribers to preview and rate. The streaming studio didn’t exclusively pick the top-rated ones, but it used those rankings as part of the decision process.
Also at the U.K. event, Amazon announced it will carry Season 2 of the BBC’s “Fleabag,” and unveiled Orlando Bloom as the star of its upcoming “Carnival Row” series.