In the last issue of ALARM, I offered a list of shows to tide you over during the desolate months of the writers’ strike. Hopefully you found something to treat your TV fix, but now it’s back to business. The writers and producers have resolved their differences, and settled on an absurdly intricate deal that involves fractions of pennies worth of compensation for the digital exploitation of television shows. As the scribes of Hollywood return to their laptops, we’ll see many of our favorite shows return for what remains of this season. Hopefully for the networks, writers, and producers, audiences will return as well.
But, more importantly, we’ll see how all of this drama affects the almighty pilot season. For those not familiar with the lingo of the TV industry, a pilot is like a starter episode of a TV show. It’s a single episode on which the potential of a series is judged. If the pilot impresses the network execs, more episodes of the show are ordered and scheduled (and the pilot ends up as the first episode of the show). The “pilot season” is the time of year when networks commission pilots for new shows. The producers then cast and shoot the pilots, hoping they will be picked up as a series. The final products are usually delivered during the summer, and the networks decide which warrant placement on their fall schedules, which still need a little tweaking, and which will find themselves in the dustbin of TV history.
Between DVRs, DVDs, On-Demand, iPods, and streaming internet video, the business of television is changing rapidly, and production schedules need to change with it.
Pilot season has changed a lot over the past decade, with more shows being developed and produced year round. The influx of new original programming on cable has had a lot to do with this, since cable networks lean towards premiering new series in the winter and summer, thereby avoiding stiff competition from networks in the fall premiere and spring finale seasons. With more money going into cable programming, pilots are being produced year round. However, cable networks aren’t granted the budgets to order as many pilots as the broadcast networks, so the bulk of pilot production still resided in the winter and spring…until now.
The strike did end in time to save some of the traditional pilot season, but it will be hard to see the real effects until next year. Most people expect the networks to order fewer pilots this year, and to order many shows straight to series. There are also a ton of hybrid situations in between, such as the new Knight Rider series, [whose pilot was] produced as a two-hour movie for air.
Networks also sometimes order what’s called a “presentation,” which tend to be shorter and less refined than a full pilot. The major advantages are that they’re cheaper to commission, and can save everyone money if the shows need serious retooling before going to series. But, at the same time, they don’t offer quite the same idea of a series as a full pilot. Also, they can’t air as actual episodes of the series. Once they’re reworked and reshot as a full episode, they can end up costing the production company more than a straight pilot.
Still another possibility is for networks to order six or eight episodes of a promising series right off the bat. This is also a bit of a double-edged sword for the studios though, since, while it is most of an order, they won’t know until into its run whether or not it will be picked up for more episodes, which makes it difficult to sell internationally.
NBC has already claimed that they’re doing away with the traditional pilot season, offering advertisers a full 52-week slate of programming for next year, without hinging everything on the usual fall season. CBS and the CW seem to be sticking more to the schedule and have notably ramped up pilot production for fall shows since the strike ended. ABC is largely focusing its production efforts on successful returning series like Lost and Grey’s Anatomy. Fox executives mocked NBC’s announcement on the basis that it’s nothing new, since they’ve scheduled many of their big ticket shows like 24 and American Idol outside of the typical fall premiere calendar for years.
It will be interesting to see how things play out in the next few months, but it seems clear that the writers strike has sped up some changes to the pilot season that have been happening slowly for years. On one hand, it doesn’t look like this year will bring the complete destruction of the pilot season, as some have foretold. However, viewers can surely expect to see less emphasis on the fall season over time, and more new shows rolling out year round.
All in all, I think this is a good thing for television. As if it’s not enough to keep up with so many shows on so many networks, we now have so many new ways to watch them. Between DVRs, DVDs, On-Demand, iPods, and streaming internet video, the business of television is changing rapidly, and production schedules need to change with it. Personally, I was overwhelmed trying to keep up with new shows last fall, but by the time the winter lull hit I was bored stiff, even before the strike. Networks moving to premiere new shows year round will make TV more consistent, and make it a lot easier for audiences to check out shows that might otherwise get lost in the chaos of September. At the very least, spreading some of the premieres around the year will make my DVR a much happier place in the fall.
Tom Hoban works in cable television in New York City. Ask him why he thinks Aristotle would have loved “Saved by the Bell.”