by Bob Levy
For the foreseeable future, development professionals are winners in the massive sea change of TV that swirls and storms around us today. Development professionals who cut their teeth in the 1990s when broadcast TV still dominated, who helped create the first generation of cable scripted hits, have enormous value to new media businesses that develop, program and distribute scripted series TV. Younger people aspiring to enter the ranks of TV development, or who are currently taking their first steps up the entry levels of the TV industry, will continue to have more and more opportunities for entrance to and upward mobility in Hollywood development suites as more and more companies open them.
Trends in TV Development
There are two kinds of TV development trends worth looking at today: process trends and creative trends. Let’s look at process first.
I’ve already highlighted two of the most important process trends, the proliferation of straight-to-series commitments and adaptation. Netflix introduced the current trend of straight-to-series development when it acquired House of Cards in 2011. Other streaming channels also began making straight-to-series orders, though not all of them do it all of the time, and cable and broadcast networks have begun making more straight-to-series projects than they used to. There are a couple of motivations for this trend. First, the networks that are using the strategy most often are the newer networks that need large volumes of programming to deliver to consumers as quickly as possible. Ordering a project straight to series produces episodes much more quickly than traditional pilot development. Those networks were and are looking for projects tee’d up and ready to go that don’t require months or years of careful development. The Netflixes and Apples of the world wanted to hit the marketplace with big, splashy, star-driven content. They have the deep pockets to afford the gamble and straight-to-series orders are one quick way to do it. A second factor motivating this trend is the heightened competition for big new development packages. As more A-list feature talent gravitate to the creative and financial opportunities afforded by the flourishing TV landscape, straight-to-series commitments are a direct result of competition for the biggest and sexiest TV packages. In a highly competitive marketplace, the sexiest new packages attract the top tier of TV buyers, and bidding wars quickly escalate the price from pilot script commitments to straight-to-series commitments.
While most straight-to-series projects avoid the piloting process, they still undergo the rigors of development. Netflix is effectively shifting the primary burden of development from its network development execs to studio development execs, producers, agents and managers. Rather than developing the pilot script at the network, most projects designed for the straight-to-series marketplace develop the pilot script within a studio or among producers. The Episode One script in these packages is rigorously developed, air-tight and ready to win a straight-to-series order. The Episode One script and the vision for the series are just as highly developed as they would be in traditional pilot development – the steps just happen earlier in the process and with a slightly different team of development professionals.
The odds are that the gravitational pull of the costs of TV development will eventually lower the number of straight-to-series orders. Once Netflix and Apple and other major streaming channels have bulked up their programming slates and have fully stocked shelves to offer eager customers, they may choose to exercise more creative control over the projects they spend huge sums of money to buy, just as other distributors traditionally have. This may lead to more hands-on development at those companies and slower, more careful processes.
The trend of adapting IP to TV series continues to flourish, as it has for the past 10–15 years. More shows than ever before are based on pre-existing IP. Pre-sold brands hedge development risk and theoretically decrease the money and manpower it takes networks to market new series. In Chapter 10 I talked about how the parent companies of networks (or in some cases the newer networks themselves) want more ownership of the shows, making the networks more interested in buying from studios within their corporate families, or, in the case of Netflix, averse to buying from studios altogether. This trend compels existing studios to find projects that network buyers absolutely need them for, and one way they can do this is by leveraging their ownership of branded IP. Warner Bros. owns DC Comics. Disney owns Marvel, and its TV studio, ABC Studios, divvies up that IP with its sister feature division. Paramount Television owns a library of hit movie brands that it now translates to TV series like Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan and First Wives Club. Offering networks branded IP is a strategy studios employ to stay relevant in a world where networks want to own as much content as possible.
Aggregating, packaging and selling IP is a growing area in TV development. Storied Media Group, founded in 2013, licenses pipelines of IP, then brokers and produces it for TV and film. Another entrant in this growing wing of TV development is Vince Gerardis, a Co-Executive Producer of Game of Thrones. Gerardis helped package Game of Thrones and has relationships with book agents to package their clients’ IP for other TV and film ventures. Gerardis recently signed a deal with Amazon to funnel IP he controls into series development for the streaming giant. Finding sources of IP and figuring out how to control and leverage it for TV exploitation is a growing opportunity for new development professionals.
Creative Trends
The most dominant trend in TV development during the past 20 years has been the trend toward increasingly dark, mature, sophisticated subject matter, tone and overall execution. Since The Sopranos in 1999, the anti-hero has reigned and development professionals have built scores of new series centering on deeply flawed lead characters, even in traditional TV genres, as we’ve seen with True Detective, Bosch, The Knick and even Bull. Networks have sought out mature, sensitive and challenging subject matter that they never would have considered just a few years earlier, like Transparent for example. In 2018 Amazon ordered a one-hour drama series, This is Jane, set in an underground abortion clinic, a subject networks have avoided for generations.
The success of This is Us in 2016 was seen by many as a reaction against this trend, turning the tide toward brighter, more earnest, warmer and more hopeful shows. The success of The Good Doctor a year later is interpreted as confirmation of the new direction. These examples are both in the broadcast network space, which has always tilted towards brighter and warmer than cable and streaming, but the buzz among agents and other sellers appears to suggest that the success of those shows has prompted some of their cable and streaming competitors to consider lighter, more hopeful concepts as well.
Genre experimentation and avoidance have been a corollary feature of the trend toward darker and more sophisticated shows. Shows like Turn: Washington’s Spies and Halt and Catch Fire have no genre antecedents and never would have been considered for development in earlier years. Network development executives across the spectrum continue to look for untraditional concepts and styles of storytelling for development. At the same time, fresh ways to reinvent tried and true TV genres like the traditional one-hour drama procedurals continue to be in demand in all sectors of the market.
Diversity and inclusion have been vital trends in recent years and have grown even more central to the entire industry’s focus in the last couple of years. Building shows around ensembles that feature diversity of ethnicity, sexual orientation, physical challenges and body shapes has become a priority in TV development throughout the industry. Giving voice to creators and other writers who were traditionally underrepresented in television is a priority at most networks and studios. Hiring executives from diverse backgrounds at every level has become central to the policies and practices at networks and studios as never before.
As the world around them changes, development professionals continue to challenge themselves with the basic questions of TV development: What’s in the Zeitgeist? What’s going on in our society? Who are we? They’re looking for concepts and shows that don’t simply answer these questions in direct and literal
ways, but attempt to address them in poetic, allegorical or metaphorical ways. The Handmaid’s Tale surprised even its own creators, studio and network in being more immediately relevant than anyone imagined.
The Future of TV Development
The American television industry today is as healthy and vibrant as it has ever been. There is more work, more opportunities for success and more creative openness and experimentation than ever before. The TV industry still has its gatekeepers and codes of conduct, but newer and less experienced voices are being heard and gaining more access than ever before. Aspiring writers and other development professionals who temper their creative ambition and optimism with pragmatism, realism and diligence have unlimited opportunities for success.
Despite the industry’s increasingly voracious appetite for new shows and more shows, TV development remains incredibly hard. Most pitches fail. Most development fails. Most new series fail. The smartest, most talented and experienced development professionals use their best judgment and instincts at every step, take their best guesses and make the best decisions they can, and they’re wrong more often than they’re right. In many ways, as genuinely dedicated, creative and thoughtful as most TV development professionals are, the work is ultimately a kind of alchemy. The stars need to align, the timing needs to be right, the TV gods need to smile down in ways no one can predict and control. In those rare instances when it works, though, when a show emerges from development and thrives, it almost feels like magic.
Notes
1 According to FX Network Research, there were 487 scripted TV series in 2017, up from 288 five years earlier. Joe Otterson, “487 Scripted Series Aired in 2017, FX Chief John Landgraf Says,” Variety, January 5, 2018, https://variety.com/2018/tv/news/2017-scripted-tv-series-fx-john-landgraf-1202653856.
2 In 2015 FX network president John Landgraf famously predicted the number of scripted series would peak in 2016. He has revised that estimate over the years and now agrees that the number will continue to rise. Joe Lynch, “Peak TV Is Still ‘a Ways’ From Peaking, FX’s John Landgraf Says,” Adweek, August 3, 2018, www.adweek.com/tv-video/no-relief-in-sight-peak-tv-is-still-a-ways-from-peaking-fxs-john-landgraf-says.
Appendix
Glossary of TV Development Terminology
auspices
the creative team behind a development project, which may include the writer, non-writing producer, director and author/s of underlying IP (intellectual property); e.g., when an agent calls a network development exec to ask if he’s interested in hearing a pitch, the agent will pitch the project’s logline and auspices.
backend
profits derived from the many forms of revenue a TV series earns that a studio shares with profit participants.
blind script deal
a deal in which a studio guarantees a writer payment for a pilot script or scripts, the creative of which will be determined by the writer and studio at a future date.
breakdown
a description of a pilot or series acting role, written by a casting director and approved by producers, which is disseminated via the Breakdown Service to talent agents and managers so reps know what roles are being cast.
business affairs executive
an executive at a network, studio or other entertainment company who is a full-time negotiator of entertainment deals; typically negotiates with entertainment lawyers and agents.
closed-ended storytelling
the practice of telling stories that begin and end within individual episodes of a series, as opposed to serialized or open-ended storytelling.
creator
the writer who wrote the pilot or first episode of a TV series that defines the concept, characters, world and type of storytelling of a series.
current executive
a network or studio programming executive who represents his or her company’s interest in a show currently in production and on the air.
development
the process of creating new movies and TV series; the process of originating and improving scripted material to serve as a blueprint for a TV pilot, series or feature film; the process of identifying commercial ideas and concepts and assembling the creative elements that turn those ideas into finished filmed entertainment.
development executive
a network, studio or production company executive who works with writers and producers to develop new pilots and series.
domestic comedy
a family comedy series.
first-look deal
a long-term deal (anywhere from one to five years) in which a studio guarantees a writer or producer regular payment in exchange for the first right of refusal of any and all TV projects the writer or producer creates or develops; if the studio passes on a project, the writer is free to take it to another studio or directly to networks.
format
1. the conceptual and storytelling elements (concept, characters and their relationships, world, story engines) that legally comprise and define a TV series that is owned by a company or individual and can be sold to producers in other territories for adaption and exploitation; e.g., Homeland is based on an Israeli TV format that was licensed to Fox 21 to develop and produce an American version for Showtime.
2. a shorter version of a series bible, typically around ten pages.
franchise
1. the central element of a concept – frequently a vocation or avocation (i.e., a job or a hobby) – that generates a number of stories and implies standard story structures (e.g., a cop gets assigned a case, the cop investigates the case, the cop solves the case); a kind of story engine.
2. a brand of multiple TV series unified by title, concept and structural elements programmed by one network (CSI and NCIS were/are TV franchises).
genre show
a category of series that include some kind of supernatural element.
goal
a specific, concrete thing a character takes action to get in a story or series.
holding deal or holding money
a deal typically made by networks to guarantee an actor is available to star in one of the network’s new pilots and/or series.
housekeeping deal
a long-term deal (usually one or two years) in which a studio provides a producer with an office, an assistant and nominal or no regular payment in exchange for a first look or exclusive ownership of the producer’s new TV development.
if-come deal
a deal with a studio in which a writer agrees to prep and shop a pitch to networks but will only receive payment from the studio if the project sells.
lay off
to steer a new development project a network has just acquired to a TV studio, typically to a sister-studio division owned by the same parent company as the network.
look-book
a visual presentation of images (usually delivered as a PDF document) that suggests to network and studio executives the director’s and producers’ visual design for a pilot or series; images are typically a combination of inspiration images “borrowed” from books, magazines or the internet and photos taken of actual locations, props, set decoration and wardrobe.
material
the written basis of development; scripts, pitches, treatments, series bibles, formats and IP (intellectual property).
network needs
official list of a network’s creative development targets for a given development cycle that’s disseminated to studios, talent agencies and writers.
network script coverage
the small share a network pays a writer to write a pilot that goes toward the studio’s typically larger share of payment to the writer.
non-writing EP
an executive producer (the highest-ranking producer on a TV project) who is not a screenwriter; frequently partners with writers during the development process.
notes
creative suggestions given to writers, directors or actors by development executives or producers.
&
nbsp; open-ended storytelling
the practice of telling stories over the course of multiple episodes or multiple seasons of a series.
open writing assignment (often referred to in writing by its abbreviation OWA)
a project in active development at a network that’s looking for a writer because it was bought without a writer attached; e.g., a producer might set up a book at a network (creating an OWA) and then find the best writer to adapt the book.
overall deal
a long-term deal (anywhere from one to five years or longer) in which a studio guarantees a writer or producer regular payment in exchange for every TV project the writer or producer creates or develops.
package
1. the creative elements of a piece of development, the end result of packaging (e.g., a package might include a book that serves as source material for a series, a writer with a vision for adapting the book to television, a producer and a director).
2. a talent agency’s share of backend participation of a TV series typically equal to ten points (10%) of ownership of profits awarded for packaging the key creative elements of a project.
packaging
the process of assembling the creative elements of development for a project such as an idea, a writer, a producer and other potential elements.
pilot
the first episode of a series produced as a test episode to determine if a project is worth ordering to series; the pilot typically is the first episode of a series to air.