Source: © BBC
US network NBC is to stop making pilot episodes of TV series – a move that could change how new US shows are made.
The networks spend millions of dollars each year turning scripts into single episodes to test audience reaction.
But NBC Universal chief executive Jeff Zucker thinks he can save $50m (£25.6m) each year by scrapping them.
“We will still market those scripted series. We are just going to go straight to air with them and cut out the pilots,” he said.
The move has partly been prompted by the writers’ strike, which has led studios to scale back on new productions because of a lack of scripts.
Soaring costs
The cost of producing a pilot has soared over the last three years from $3 million to $7 million.
Last year NBC commissioned eight new drama series after pilots were produced. The system is supposed to weed out failures.
“I think there were a tremendous number of inefficiencies in Hollywood and it often takes a seismic event to change them, and I think that’s what’s happened here,” Mr Zucker told the Financial Times.
Among the shows dropped by NBC after one series is Journeyman, a time-travel series featuring Scottish star Kevin McKidd.
The future of Bionic Woman – starring former EastEnders actress Michelle Ryan – is uncertain after it suffered low ratings. Only eight episodes were aired before the writers’ strike affected production.
NBC says it will still commission one or two pilots a year, but other series will go straight into production. It is not clear whether other studios will follow.
Well, there goes new material for my Pilot Channel idea. 🙂
So the future success of NBC is all going to depend upon Jeff Zucker’s gut feelings about how a show will turn out and not upon the successful test audience reaction to a completed pilot.
NBC is doomed.
This won’t negatively effect the quality of Shows, considering that most pilots are great; but after a change of script-writers in the second and third episodes, the shows start to deteriorate. Think Bionic Woman, and the marked drop in cohesiveness of the shows as more and more different writers joined the staff and started changing it.
Dead Like Me would have been much smarter if Brian Fuller had been left in charge for a whole season. My favourite Dead Like Me episode is still the Pilot (even though it didn’t feature Jewel Staite as a Horny Goth).
Is the “Journeyman” show on or off the air? With the settlement of the writer’s strike will it be back on soon?
To Al: It’s off the air.