Right now, the way the system works is producers and writers, most of whom already have a development deal with a “first look” clause, pitch ideas to the networks. Between November and January these ideas get yea-ed or nayed and cast. Then come Easter time, they produce a basket full of “pilot” episodes. For those series that get picked up, the pilot becomes the first episode, the one that explains everything and sets up the show. Once it’s all said and done, the networks show off their spiffy prototypes to advertisers in May, who then decide if they’re interested in buying space on the series. So you go from maybe 300 pitches to 40 commissioned scripts to half a dozen pilots produced for each network in a season. These then become the new shows of next season. Make sense?
But times are a-changing. When you’re punching out studio-based sitcoms, this process doesn’t seem so bad. When you’re spending upwards of $3 million on a pilot, however, the risks skyrocket along with the budget. That’s a lot of shekels to spend on what might essentially turn into YouTube detritus.
NBC is deciding to cut their losses ahead of time and just start greenlighting stuff. Recently the network’s new head peacock asked his little birds to compile a list of their favourite stories; the results included everything from Sleeping Beauty to David vs. Goliath (the Biblical one, not the Knight Rider one). They eventually settled on a 13-episode retelling of Robinson Crusoe. Gushes the network: “It’s part MacGyver, part contemporary morality tale about race and personal discovery, part comedy, and part Cast Away meets Survivor.” Well, when you put it like that, the cannibals are just really making an alternative lifestyle choice, aren’t they?
Some producers with a good track record don’t even bother with pilots anymore. For example, CBS okayed Jerry Bruckheimer’s adaptation of British sci-fi thriller Eleventh Hour pretty much before he finished telling them the premise. And J.J. Abrams (Lost) got ABC to cough up $10 million for the pilot of his new mythology show Fringe. That’s pretty much tantamount to promising a series deal.
The new way to go, Variety reports, is international co-productions (like Crusoe, which will be the first American series to be produced by a British company in 45 years). This approach spreads the cost, and the risk, around.
And instead of the dog and pony show for the soap companies, the networks will start rolling out new shows year-round, based on viewer demand. That means more shows, but maybe fewer episodes that get rerun more often. It’s profit margin that’s key. Whether the networks want to admit it or not, in an age when so much revenue can be derived from DVD sales and product placement, ratings are going to matter a lot less in the long run.
In other words, the networks are slowly adopting the cable model of programming. It’s about freaking time.
Last week the Golden Globe nominations came out. In both the drama and comedy categories, three of the five nominees are on pay cable networks such as HBO or Showtime. What is this telling us?
Maybe the Hollywood elves on their Blackberries are on to something with the idea of revamping the pilot process. Or maybe they’re all just busy checking the help wanted section of HBO.
