Three Myth Busters for the 2009 Television Season

 Since my first blog post coincides with the insanity of the first real television season in two years (last year’s got derailed by the strike), I thought it would be a great opportunity to bust the three biggest myths of this year’s tv season:

2009 TV SEASON MYTH BUSTER # 1

“Television buying is year round.”

As much as every network says this, this is simply not true. For scripted drama and comedy, networks still are buying in “seasons.” And although I am sure networks will happily hear pitches and read scripts all year, it seems that they like to announce all their pick-ups at once to maximize the publicity.  Thus it looks like the ingrained ritual of television seasons
will probably be here for a while.

2009 TV SEASON MYTH BUSTER # 2

“Networks are looking for a half-hour multi-cam family comedy.”

I think this myth started with good intentions. Executives finally realized that there are no family comedies on tv at the moment even though the family sitcom is the genre that consistently does very well (ROSEANNE, THE COSBY SHOW, HOME IMPROVEMENT, FULL HOUSE, MARRIED WITH CHILDREN – the list goes on and on).  In fact, I believe that the reason American Idol consistently gets gangbuster numbers is because it is the only prime-time network family show currently on air.

However, networks aren’t actually buying any multi-cam family comedies. All the producers I have talked to in the past week have reiterated that, even though they have brought many a family sitcom project to the networks, the networks have passed on all of them.

In fact, one producer I spoke to said that the Sr. VP of programming at NBC loved their family sitcom script and wanted to pick it up but the new “branding people” at NBC told the Sr. VP this was not NBC’s brand and thus NBC couldn’t pick up the show. (What, funny isn’t NBC’s brand?)

2009 TV SEASON MYTH BUSTER # 3

“Networks are still buying serialized shows.”

Really this could be the biggest lie of the three.  Not only do networks not want serialized shows but even cable networks want less and less to do with them.  Think about it this way: There has not been a single successful serialized show on networks since the heyday of LOST, DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES and 24 (and the audience numbers for these shows have been going down drastically in the later seasons). In fact, even cable networks have shied away from serialized shows.

USA, TNT, TBS, and BRAVO quickly caught on to the fact that people are too tired, overworked, overstressed — you name it — to remember a show week to week. Instead, people want to watch shows that they don’t have to worry about missing an episode and not being able to follow what is going on.

Only when cable networks began programming procedural shows did their audience numbers grow exponentially. Indeed, look at the phenomenal success of THE CLOSER, MONK, BURN NOTICE, and TOP CHEF to see what I mean.

In fact, we had a client’s pilot that Fox bought that Fox executives swore up and down they wanted to “keep it serialized but just add procedural elements.”  But what really happened is that during the “network notes process” they turned it into a pure procedural and the script lost a lot of what made it special in the first place.

So where does this leave you if you are a tv writer?

Well, you can spend your whole life trying to figure out what networks want and drive yourself crazy in the process. Because, to be honest, nobody knows anything about this business.

The best thing you can do is write something that is in your voice. Something that you love, that you are passionate about, and that showcases your unique POV in the best possible light.

And, yes, if you want to give yourself a leg up, write a procedural pilot — because you have more outlets to sell it.
But if it is a choice between a mediocre procedural and a fantastic serialized show — write the serialized show.  Even if it doesn’t sell it may get you an agent or create buzz or get shown around town.

The most important thing is to have a piece of material that you are proud of and that you feel best represents you as a writer. For more honest answers for everything Entertainment — check out my site www.ShowMeTheScreenplay.com