7 ms·

What if TV Networks Aired All Their Pilots?

41 points by robg 16y ago

nazgulnarsil 16y ago
the class of people who filter pilots will resist strongly. BTW this would work even better if there was a futures market in the success of all these trial pilots. one person = one vote is a fairly primitive and inefficient system.
- dwwoelfel 16y ago
  "one person = one vote is a fairly primitive and inefficient system." In this case, it is much more efficient than letting the viewers vote on the show. The handful of executives make their vote based on long-range criteria. They want a show that has staying power, is attractive to both advertisers and viewers, and fits in with the rest of their lineup. The viewers aren't as savvy. Their vote will be based on how much they like a single episode. Viewers only see one side, they don't care about how much money the network can make from advertising. The people picking the shows should be the people who can balance the needs of the viewers with those of the network. Those people are the executives.
  - philwelch 16y ago
    The executives also have experience judging how much work a pilot needs to become viable--if a pilot is pretty boring in its present state but has a lot of promise, they can think of things to change to make it better. Of course, just as often as not, this is how executives ruin otherwise promising shows.
  - nazgulnarsil 16y ago
    instead of a counter-point, you're making a completely different point. the point here is prediction. networks want to be able to predict which shows will do well so they can draw advertising dollars. to do this they hire people whom they think will be able to make this prediction. It is unlikely, however, that these people can do better than a prediction market.
zende 16y ago
just throw them all on Hulu and collect direct metrics. why on earth would you have people vote or rely on Nielsen? each view is a vote, and there is no limit of time-slots on Hulu
- lutorm 16y ago
  Hmm... There's only one of each, so to know whether I like it, I have to watch it. How are views going to indicate what people liked?
  - william42 16y ago
    They indicate what people liked enough to, say, link on their website and get other people to watch. An inexact method, but then, so is like/dislike panels. They can also measure things such as: what percentage of people decided to stop watching halfway through.
- roc 16y ago
  It's not far from the reasons you might choose to do internal betas and focus tests instead of test marketing every revision and variant you come up with from concept to product. If pilots were all released on HULU, then a season filled with middling to poor pilots would be reviewed as such. And then no matter how much a studio might try to improve the best of the lot, they'd have those negative reviews dragging down performance of the ultimate product. If pilot feedback is reasonably controlled, the studios have the option of polishing an almost-there concept (or more cynically: the best turd of the bunch) and not having reviews of its dodgy pilot dragging down performance of the final show.
- dhume 16y ago
  there is no limit of time-slots on Hulu This also means you can't manipulate the results by dumping shows in awkward time slots (interpreted another way, you avoid having to match each show to a time slot when its potential audience is likely to see it).
- patio11 16y ago
  It is highly non-obvious to me that the demographics who use Hulu and the demographics advertisers pay $$$ to reach are the same demographics.
cubicle67 16y ago
Tell you what I'd like better - What if TV networks made public the scripts etc for shows that have been canceled. Nothing worse than getting involved in a series only to have it canceled at the end of the season (or prior). It's be great to be able to see what was planned and where the story was headed
- culled 16y ago
  I don't think that most canceled shows have many unproduced scripts (The Critic is one exception). Even if the writers know where the story was going a) getting an explanation that's just a few paragraphs isn't as satisfying as actually seeing the conclusion. b) some writers may not want to let people know what they had in store (Joss Whedon with Firefly for instance) and the ones that are willing to reveal what was planned are already doing that for their canceled shows.
- notahacker 16y ago
  A similar idea occurred to me with movies - a rejected scripts repository for unmade films would be interesting for the fanatics and occasionally might uncover a gem. You might end up with a lot of garbage though.
il 16y ago
http://channel101.com/ http://channel101.com/ has been doing this for years, resulting in some incredibly creative, if short lived, shows.
gregparadee 16y ago
I for one would love this. Even if they just did it online for people to watch. It would provide a great way to get feedback on shows and would just lead to the networks making more money. It amazes me how shows like Burn Notice end up on TNT because network execs didn't think that it would be a good show.
prawn 16y ago
There'd be a hell of a lot more petitions to "Bring back x!" Every pilot, now matter how ridiculously niche, would attract some grouping of die-hards creating petitions, fan-fiction, costumes and more. 'Please reconsider your decision to cancel Large-Nostril Boris, an excellent character representing all of us with above-average nasal volume and providing hope to everyone around the world. Sign on if you agree, or read my Boris fan-fic here!'
- dcx 16y ago
  You say that like it's a bad thing, but couldn't you then determine the profitable niche segments and run with those? It's getting cheaper and cheaper to make a show. And distribution isn't limited to TV channels - online, DVD... That fits pretty well into the overall trend of the internet resulting in deep specialisation.
philwelch 16y ago
I think you could take a step beyond this, and use the performance of those pilots to judge whether or not to continue borderline shows like Law & Order or to dump them in favor of a promising pilot.
gojomo 16y ago
Years ago I once participated in a focus group for some early sitcom pilots. The shows had recognizable actors, but were really rough -- in production values, in line delivery and pacing, etc. I never saw the shows we watched become actual series -- but if they had, the pilots would have had to have been refilmed to reach broadcast quality. So that might prove a barrier to opening up the unaired pilots -- while they're called 'pilots', they're not yet what audiences expect of a 'series premiere'. Even if they've got potential, the participants might be embarrassed to have their rough form available to the public. Also, it might prove harder to tinker with the premise once fans develop -- swapping an actor or changing a character could generate an online backlash before episode one.
azanar 16y ago
I think the economic analysis of this is incomplete. There is more to the cost of airing a pilot than just the production cost of the pilot, and this even assumes the network has agreed to assume the cost of that. There is the cost of lining up advertisers for the commercial breaks during, before, and after the pilot. There is the displacement of the show(s) that would've otherwise filled the time-slot the pilot occupies. There is the opportunity cost of the advertisers you might have lined up if you hadn't punted the incumbent for the pilot. The more pilots you elect to air, the more often you have to make these trade-offs. If there are a sufficient number of incumbents that can be thoughtlessly traded for pilots like this, I'd wonder about the general program management of the network, and how long they've been allowing things to stagnate. Even if you just sacrificed a week, that is a huge amount of potential revenue to sacrifice for the sake of picking the "right" set of shows. And, even if all the economics for airing every pilot works out, it still doesn't guarantee much. You are still gathering data based on what people say they might want to watch based on a snapshot. I can't imagine this is going to be particularly predictive of a series's performance. This seems similar to someone taking a vote on whether a movie sequel ought to be produced from an audience who had just seen the original; I can see far more people asking for that many Scary Movie sequels as actually went to see them.
- thwarted 16y ago
  Most of the lack of space and time to show these would be solved by offering them for free via On Demand; or on YouTube and hulu, both of which have advertising platforms that would consider this remnant ad inventory.
  - joezydeco 16y ago
    If you take it off the broadcast net, doesn't that eliminate the whole "American Idol" aspect of the idea where people watch together and then vote? If you make it homework ("watch every one of these shows by friday!"), you've lost the public.
    - thwarted 16y ago
      Huh? Pilots are already not necessarily shown to the general public via broadcast television. Making them more easily available via the internet can only serve to increase their exposure. No one is requiring anyone to watch these like "homework", just like consuming any possible entertainment isn't "homework". If they are available via On Demand for free, then people can watch them just like they watch other shows.
njharman 16y ago
> What if a network devoted one week, maybe in early summertime, to airing all its pilots for the fall season How dinosaurish. Flippin put them all online. Youtube will pick up hosting bill and even track how often they are viewed for you. I'm assuming air time is too valuable and limited to waste is why a "handful of TV executives" send 2/3rds of piolets to /dev/null

41 points by robg 16y ago

the class of people who filter pilots will resist strongly. BTW this would work even better if there was a futures market in the success of all these trial pilots. one person = one vote is a fairly primitive and inefficient system.

dwwoelfel 16y ago
"one person = one vote is a fairly primitive and inefficient system." In this case, it is much more efficient than letting the viewers vote on the show. The handful of executives make their vote based on long-range criteria. They want a show that has staying power, is attractive to both advertisers and viewers, and fits in with the rest of their lineup. The viewers aren't as savvy. Their vote will be based on how much they like a single episode. Viewers only see one side, they don't care about how much money the network can make from advertising. The people picking the shows should be the people who can balance the needs of the viewers with those of the network. Those people are the executives.
- philwelch 16y ago
  The executives also have experience judging how much work a pilot needs to become viable--if a pilot is pretty boring in its present state but has a lot of promise, they can think of things to change to make it better. Of course, just as often as not, this is how executives ruin otherwise promising shows.
- nazgulnarsil 16y ago
  instead of a counter-point, you're making a completely different point. the point here is prediction. networks want to be able to predict which shows will do well so they can draw advertising dollars. to do this they hire people whom they think will be able to make this prediction. It is unlikely, however, that these people can do better than a prediction market.

zende 16y ago

just throw them all on Hulu and collect direct metrics. why on earth would you have people vote or rely on Nielsen? each view is a vote, and there is no limit of time-slots on Hulu

lutorm 16y ago
Hmm... There's only one of each, so to know whether I like it, I have to watch it. How are views going to indicate what people liked?
- william42 16y ago
  They indicate what people liked enough to, say, link on their website and get other people to watch. An inexact method, but then, so is like/dislike panels. They can also measure things such as: what percentage of people decided to stop watching halfway through.
roc 16y ago
It's not far from the reasons you might choose to do internal betas and focus tests instead of test marketing every revision and variant you come up with from concept to product. If pilots were all released on HULU, then a season filled with middling to poor pilots would be reviewed as such. And then no matter how much a studio might try to improve the best of the lot, they'd have those negative reviews dragging down performance of the ultimate product. If pilot feedback is reasonably controlled, the studios have the option of polishing an almost-there concept (or more cynically: the best turd of the bunch) and not having reviews of its dodgy pilot dragging down performance of the final show.
dhume 16y ago
there is no limit of time-slots on Hulu This also means you can't manipulate the results by dumping shows in awkward time slots (interpreted another way, you avoid having to match each show to a time slot when its potential audience is likely to see it).
patio11 16y ago
It is highly non-obvious to me that the demographics who use Hulu and the demographics advertisers pay $$$ to reach are the same demographics.

cubicle67 16y ago

Tell you what I'd like better - What if TV networks made public the scripts etc for shows that have been canceled. Nothing worse than getting involved in a series only to have it canceled at the end of the season (or prior). It's be great to be able to see what was planned and where the story was headed

culled 16y ago
I don't think that most canceled shows have many unproduced scripts (The Critic is one exception). Even if the writers know where the story was going a) getting an explanation that's just a few paragraphs isn't as satisfying as actually seeing the conclusion. b) some writers may not want to let people know what they had in store (Joss Whedon with Firefly for instance) and the ones that are willing to reveal what was planned are already doing that for their canceled shows.
notahacker 16y ago
A similar idea occurred to me with movies - a rejected scripts repository for unmade films would be interesting for the fanatics and occasionally might uncover a gem. You might end up with a lot of garbage though.

il 16y ago

http://channel101.com/ http://channel101.com/ has been doing this for years, resulting in some incredibly creative, if short lived, shows.

gregparadee 16y ago

I for one would love this. Even if they just did it online for people to watch. It would provide a great way to get feedback on shows and would just lead to the networks making more money. It amazes me how shows like Burn Notice end up on TNT because network execs didn't think that it would be a good show.

prawn 16y ago

There'd be a hell of a lot more petitions to "Bring back x!" Every pilot, now matter how ridiculously niche, would attract some grouping of die-hards creating petitions, fan-fiction, costumes and more. 'Please reconsider your decision to cancel Large-Nostril Boris, an excellent character representing all of us with above-average nasal volume and providing hope to everyone around the world. Sign on if you agree, or read my Boris fan-fic here!'

dcx 16y ago
You say that like it's a bad thing, but couldn't you then determine the profitable niche segments and run with those? It's getting cheaper and cheaper to make a show. And distribution isn't limited to TV channels - online, DVD... That fits pretty well into the overall trend of the internet resulting in deep specialisation.

philwelch 16y ago

I think you could take a step beyond this, and use the performance of those pilots to judge whether or not to continue borderline shows like Law & Order or to dump them in favor of a promising pilot.

gojomo 16y ago

Years ago I once participated in a focus group for some early sitcom pilots. The shows had recognizable actors, but were really rough -- in production values, in line delivery and pacing, etc. I never saw the shows we watched become actual series -- but if they had, the pilots would have had to have been refilmed to reach broadcast quality. So that might prove a barrier to opening up the unaired pilots -- while they're called 'pilots', they're not yet what audiences expect of a 'series premiere'. Even if they've got potential, the participants might be embarrassed to have their rough form available to the public. Also, it might prove harder to tinker with the premise once fans develop -- swapping an actor or changing a character could generate an online backlash before episode one.

azanar 16y ago

I think the economic analysis of this is incomplete. There is more to the cost of airing a pilot than just the production cost of the pilot, and this even assumes the network has agreed to assume the cost of that. There is the cost of lining up advertisers for the commercial breaks during, before, and after the pilot. There is the displacement of the show(s) that would've otherwise filled the time-slot the pilot occupies. There is the opportunity cost of the advertisers you might have lined up if you hadn't punted the incumbent for the pilot. The more pilots you elect to air, the more often you have to make these trade-offs. If there are a sufficient number of incumbents that can be thoughtlessly traded for pilots like this, I'd wonder about the general program management of the network, and how long they've been allowing things to stagnate. Even if you just sacrificed a week, that is a huge amount of potential revenue to sacrifice for the sake of picking the "right" set of shows. And, even if all the economics for airing every pilot works out, it still doesn't guarantee much. You are still gathering data based on what people say they might want to watch based on a snapshot. I can't imagine this is going to be particularly predictive of a series's performance. This seems similar to someone taking a vote on whether a movie sequel ought to be produced from an audience who had just seen the original; I can see far more people asking for that many Scary Movie sequels as actually went to see them.

thwarted 16y ago
Most of the lack of space and time to show these would be solved by offering them for free via On Demand; or on YouTube and hulu, both of which have advertising platforms that would consider this remnant ad inventory.
- joezydeco 16y ago
  If you take it off the broadcast net, doesn't that eliminate the whole "American Idol" aspect of the idea where people watch together and then vote? If you make it homework ("watch every one of these shows by friday!"), you've lost the public.
  - thwarted 16y ago
    Huh? Pilots are already not necessarily shown to the general public via broadcast television. Making them more easily available via the internet can only serve to increase their exposure. No one is requiring anyone to watch these like "homework", just like consuming any possible entertainment isn't "homework". If they are available via On Demand for free, then people can watch them just like they watch other shows.

njharman 16y ago

> What if a network devoted one week, maybe in early summertime, to airing all its pilots for the fall season How dinosaurish. Flippin put them all online. Youtube will pick up hosting bill and even track how often they are viewed for you. I'm assuming air time is too valuable and limited to waste is why a "handful of TV executives" send 2/3rds of piolets to /dev/null