This doesn't look especially "desperate" to me. They gave the guy "a deal". The article doesn't mention the price. It doesn't mention a pilot, let alone an orde

This doesn't look especially "desperate" to me. They gave the guy "a deal". The article doesn't mention the price. It doesn't mention a pilot, let alone an order of six episodes. It says there's a writer, a co-writer, a producer, and a press release. That's all just paper, and precious little paper so far. The sunk cost of this for the network could literally range all the way down to: The cost of printing out that press release. (Because, believe me, if you're an aspiring screenwriter and a studio calls and offers to read your spec script, put out a press release, introduce you to a producer whose name you've actually heard, and pay you as little as one nickel, you take that call. Because having a studio on the other end of a phone line may be all you need to get an agent, who will not only help you negotiate your way up to fifty whole bucks above union scale, but will also probably shop your next script or two around. Which is where the value is. Many aspiring screenwriters never get this far.)