Listeners to The Geoff Show may have heard ITV’s Head of Entertainment recently fielding programme suggestions from listeners. He was very good, and a scarily high proportion of ideas had already either been pitched or even produced.
Anyway, Jackson is no Johnny come lately to the broadcasting game, and he’s just presented the first pair of three shows on Radio 4 called LA Stories explaining how American TV works.
Here’s a scary fact about how US TV schedules work. Pitching new shows happens between 4 July and the end of September, so get those scripts ready now! One of the execs on the first show said they collectively heard 350 drama pitches, of which they buy 60 scripts, from which 8 will get made as pilots, from which 3 will get made as a series. And only one of those three in an average year will get to stay on the air and reach the end of its first season or get renewed for a second.
A fascinating series, with the second part availble to listen-again now. It’ll keep me going until Desperate Networks arrives.
Finally, welcome if you’ve just come to me from The Geoff Show. Hope you like what you see, and feel free to go through the rigmarole of getting a Typekey username so that you can comment below. Even then, I get to say yay or nay on comments, but unless you’re really nasty, it’ll be yay.