Ever wonder how new shows are picked?

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http://www.mercurynews.com/portlet/article...&siteId=568

Ever wonder how new shows are picked?

NETWORKS SEEK FRESH IDEAS AMID CHAOTIC FRENZY

By Charlie McCollum

Mercury News

San Jose Mercury News

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In the world of TV, there's an annual high-stakes craps game. Millions of dollars are wagered, and there's just a handful of winners.

As you read this, pilots (essentially sample episodes) of 112 new dramas and comedies are in various stages of production, with thousands of studio executives, producers, writers, directors and actors hoping their projects will make it onto the networks' fall schedules. Fewer than a third will make the cut; even fewer of those that do will last for more than a season.

It's a game that has been going on since the dawn of network TV more than 50 years ago - and one that almost none of those involved really feels is the best way to ensure that really good television gets on the air, that the best choices are made.

"When you develop an industry over 50 years, there's a lot of institutional memory that's very hard to change," says Ted Harbert, the former head of ABC Entertainment and now CEO of cable's Comcast Entertainment Group.

While the pilot process comes down to an intense four-month period early each year, it actually begins as each new TV season unfolds in the fall. As soon as network executives debut their new lineups, Harbert says, "all the writers and agents in Hollywood come to them and say, `All your new shows suck, and we've got to sell you all new shows because most of them are going to fail.'"

It is a grinding process in which literally thousands of "pitches" - ideas - are presented to executives in hopes that they'll agree to order scripts that could lead to full-blown series. Nina Tassler, now president of CBS Entertainment, says she used to hear 300 to 400 pitches each fall when she was the network's head of drama development.

The executives say they are looking for fresh ideas, shows with original visions.

"When you get a script like `Heroes,' a very unique concept, you can make a clear decision," says Angela Bromstad, president of NBC Universal Studios. "But when you get a really good cop procedural and there are 10 others in development, maybe you don't do that show."

But writers say that, too often, it's a guessing game of what networks are looking for - what the hot (and often derivative) concept of the moment might be.

"If you see a show like `Lost' succeed, miraculously drama writers have shows about people in a small town who are cut off from everybody or who are in a boat and cut off from everybody," says Bill Lawrence, the creator of NBC's "Scrubs."

Exactly that happened before the start of the current season, when networks were scrambling to find a new high-concept, serialized show in the style of "Lost." The result was a glut of such dramas, most of which bombed.

Some writers simply bypass the pitch process and write scripts on "spec." Even though they don't get paid, they come to the networks with fully developed projects in hand. It took Marc Cherry, the creator of "Desperate Housewives," more than two years, two agents, 17 rewrites and a shift in format (from half-hour sitcom to hour-long soap opera) to get his series on the air.

But "for me, it was essential to do the work on my own and just walk in with the finished product so that the show was done, the vision was done," Cherry says. "It wasn't just an idea. They could see the tonality. They could see the characters and everything."

Exceptions to rule

Occasionally, a show will jump directly to a network schedule on the basis of the concept, a script and the track record of those involved.

Last year, it was "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," created by Aaron Sorkin of "The West Wing," and "The Class," co-created by David Crane of "Friends." This year, "Back to You," a comedy about life at a local TV station, already has been picked up by Fox on the strength of its writers (led by Christopher Lloyd of "Frasier") and lead actors (Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton).

In addition, a new series spawned from an existing hit show (the "CSI" and "Law & Order" franchises in past years) tend to get special treatment. This year, a spinoff of "Grey's Anatomy" built around Addison Shepherd (Kate Walsh) is all but certain to make the ABC fall lineup. (It still will do a pilot, to air as an episode of the original series next month.)

Most shows follow a more traditional path, and once the orders for scripts are given - usually in November - there is a mad scramble by writers to get them done and back into the executives' hands.

"Writers get pushed to get a pilot script in before the holidays in hopes of an early pickup and a jump on casting," Lawrence says. "Then you hand it in and you wait to hear what people think. You feel like you're chasing a brass ring that doesn't really exist."

And, adds Jenny Bicks, executive producer of "Men In Trees," "you're asking for executives to read your script with a fresh eye when they most likely have read, at that point, hundreds of things."

By late December or early January, the game is really on as the networks choose which pilots actually are going to be filmed. Particularly with dramas, that's no small commitment. Since "Lost" did its splashy two-hour, $14 million-plus pilot in 2004, costs have skyrocketed. A Los Angeles Times survey late last year put the average budget of a drama pilot at more than $6 million.

"The networks have come to realize these shows have to be more visually sophisticated, more arresting," says David Semel, a producer-director on such shows as "American Dreams" and "Heroes."

"A pilot like the one for `Heroes' never would have been made some years ago. It's a feature film on television."

But the high costs simply contribute to the frantic nature of the process at this point.

"It's like pro sports. There are people you want on your team, and that group is finite," says Carlton Cruise, executive producer of "Lost."

"Everybody's chasing the same actors and the same writers, and it's all on this clock. I don't think that's necessarily the best way to nurture something creatively."

Jon Amiel, who began his directing career in Britain on such shows as "The Singing Detective," says, "The world of American television was something of a brutal shock to me when I first discovered the insanity of pilot season. It's like an entire Japanese fishing fleet lighting into the same shore of mackerel. It's a spectacularly senseless process."

The feeding frenzy is particularly pronounced when it comes to directors and such top drama guns as Semel and David Nutter ("The X-Files"), who often will get multiple offers. The go-to guy on comedy is veteran James Burrows, whose credentials go all the way back to "The Mary Tyler Moore Show." This year, Burrows will do at least a half dozen sitcom pilots.

Actors not at best

For actors, "it stinks. It's a very difficult and long process for everyone," says Teri Polo, whose credits include "The West Wing."

"As an actor, you go on two or three different auditions a day for a different pilot. It's rolling the dice if you get a call back, if you even get seen, if you get to test."

Sean Maguire, a co-star of "The Class," says, "You go in and you want to be fresh and alert, and it's nearly impossible." Doing three auditions a day can be "soul-destroying," he says, "because you end up doing a crappy job on all three."

If you get multiple offers, says Paget Brewster, now on "Criminal Minds" and someone who has done 16 pilots during her career, the pressure is to make the right choice. "There have been times in the process where I've had to flip a coin to decide what to do."

Eventually, however, the pilots do get made and get into the hands of network executives who then have to weigh all kinds of factors in their decisions, ranging from what they think they need for their lineups to the reactions of focus groups to what their own guts tell them about a show's potential to be a hit.

"The objective is to create buzz and to do projects that have the potential of being breakout hits," says CBS's Tassler. "In order to achieve that goal, you still have to have all the elements of great storytelling: drama, direction, acting. Buzz is not an isolated objective."

Which may explain why this pilot season is riddled with high-concept shows that could cut through the clutter the way "Heroes" did last fall. Thanks to the success of "The Office," there are British imports, including such quirky offerings as American versions of the musical-comedy/film noir "Viva Blackpool!" and the lusty Brit soap "Footballers Wives." There are shows involving 1970s wife-swapping ("Swingtown"), exorcism ("Demons"), 400-year-old detectives ("New Amsterdam") and time travelers ("Journeyman").

And what will make the cut?

We won't know for sure until mid-May, when the networks present their schedules to advertisers in New York. The only thing that's certain is that within a few weeks, everyone will start revving up for the next pilot season. And the process will start all over again.

[R!ck]

Thanks for posting that article. Great read

[DaysFanJean]

Super. Now I have something to look forward to in mid-May. That's always fun, reading about the new shows and realigning viewing schedules.