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Should TV Networks Put Pilots Online For Judgement Like Amazon Is Doing?
An anonymous reader writes "EW debates how broadcasters might (and might not) benefit from letting the Internet help decide which of their pilots get series orders (like Amazon is doing with their new original content efforts). If NBC had posted its pilots online, would we have been spared 'Animal Practice'? It's an interesting idea, but not without faults: 'According to Nielsen’s research, the vast majority of TV viewing is still on a traditional set. Having pilots judged by online viewers would give networks a skewed sense of what might work in the fall — the entire broadcast schedule might be nothing but sci-fi shows, tween-lit adaptions and whatever Joss Whedon wants to do ... "If something isn’t picked up, for whatever reason, but people really liked it, that could be a problem," one network insider said. "Or if people hated something, and we pick it up — again, for whatever reason — you’re starting off on a bad note." ... Noted a major network programming researcher: "Great pilots don’t always make great television series." Conversely, if you’re a network executive, you usually don’t need millions of people to tell you a show sucks."
...they follow Bennett Haselton's forthcoming advice on how to improve the process.
I watch all of my TV on a traditional set.... through a HTPC running XBMC. All my shows grabbed using SickBeard on a server. It's like a massive DVR machine. Also just added NetFlix to the mix for Movies and Arrested Development.
Before you do that, let me buy your shows without cable. For maybe half the cost of the dvd, unless it includes one at the end of the season. 24 hour delay is about the most I could see tolerating for that kind of expense. More delay, would decrease the value of the program to me.
As history has shown, clearly the Fox executives *do*
I was hoping that this was going to be about putting Airline pilots on trial.. my PDX > DFW flight yesterday almost killed me.
"the entire broadcast schedule might be nothing but sci-fi shows, tween-lit adaptions and whatever Joss Whedon wants to do"
Can someone point it out?
This could succeed. Or it could fail spectacularly. No one really knows what will happen with this so Amazon is trying to be the first mover. But I guess we'll know soon enough now that someone is trying this approach.
yes. of course, and if something doesn't get picked up, they can crowd source fund a few episodes.. and they should use more of the British model where a 'season' might be just 3 to 4 episodes.. all done with quality..
They should sign people up for subscriptions and allow them to watch anywhere, any time.. and be part of the process of picking what they wil be watching.. after all if you ask nicely most people will tell you what they think.
They are basically creating content (by buying it or paying for it) and then finding advertisers to fund it.. that's a model that easier to do online than offline, esp. now that people are time shifting, Etc. They need to forget that they are going out Over The Air and start to incorporate everything they can do when they to OTT (over the top)..
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what is ...tv...
The summary makes a good point that the sample audience could have very different tastes than the target audience. I think it's probably a good idea for shows that are intended to be released online, in the same format as the pilot is previewed.
Conversely, if you’re a network executive, you usually don’t need millions of people to tell you a show sucks.
Apparently, you do, based on how many TV shows utterly fail due to poor ratings. But here's the problem: TV (especially sitcoms and reality TV) aren't about making quality entertainment, they're about ratings. Some network exec thought Animal Practice would make money, not necessarily be a quality show. TV is primarily a business, not a medium for artistic expression. Internet TV is not that different, but Amazon's approach could give shows a chance that otherwise would have been nixed by an exec that guessed wrong.
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Four words: Goatse The TV Series
I want a TV series of just pilots or things that got picked up but were canned and never shown. Stuff like that. If done right it could be entertaining. Give some details on it before it shows. Who knows there could be a winner lurking in there and it would get the attention it deserves.
the way they do it now is easily considered to be more fundamentally flawed, and that's by using focus groups. there is no possible way you can with any level of accuracy gauge how well a TV show or movie is going to perform by sampling such a tiny group of people.
Free for the first week, $0.50 the next week, $1.00 for the next week, ...
You should get a reasonable price and demand curve...
Hey, as long as we're asking "Should [random business] do [something pulled out of the rectal database]."-type questions.
Internet may give you a skewed audience, but there's nothing saying you couldn't just create a large base set of pilots, show all the pilots during a set of "Preview Weeks!" at the beginning of the year, or over the summer, and then pick up those ones that poll well or reasonably for the fall semester.
"...the entire broadcast schedule might be nothing but sci-fi shows, tween-lit adaptions and whatever Joss Whedon wants to do .."
As horrible as tween-lit adaptions sounds, if it comes as a package with one-third of what's on tv being "whatever Joss Whedon wants to do" I could live with the trade-off. Hell, I might even get cable again for that.
No. The traditional networks should go on doing things as they have. As they lose relevance, audiance share and advertising clout, they should negotiate the best deal they can for their legacy trademarks and sell out to their successors.
The model is to put something on the air, on the cable or on the net which will cause people to stop doing anything else and to focus their attention on the content. This enables the content providers to add their own other content to mix in with the stream. This enables them to influence our knowledge, perception, thoughts, beliefs and ideals. MOST of the time, the additional content is advertising which does all of the afore mentioned with the purpose of getting people to buy things.
SO. With that said, it is most efficient to create content which most interesting to the people that buy the most and are most easily influenced.
This is why the good shows don't last while crap shows stay on forever and are replicated over and over and over again.
The exception is when "the content is the product" of course, but that's a rather rare in the grand scheme of things.
You're saying that like it's a bad thing. I might end up buying a TV.
If NBC had posted its pilots online, would we have been spared 'Animal Practice'?
Probably not. But I suspect we definitely would have been spared 1600 Penn. Geesh, what a disaster that show was.
Leslie Nielsen would have made a good pilot in Airplane, but he ended up just playing the doctor. Still funny with NEILSEN in a movie about PILOTS. .....
and whatever Joss Whedon wants to do
And that is bad how?
almost always I can't tell how good the season is going to be from only the first show..
That is becoming less and less rare. Netflix, HBO, Showtime are all now producing content that is the product. Without any advertising other than for more of their own content on the last two.
"Conversely, if you’re a network executive, you usually don’t need millions of people to tell you a show sucks."
Firefly.
Done.
Answer to any news item headline posted as a question is always no.
Anser to 'do like amazon' is also always no. Whats good for Amazon is has never been good for the rest of us. The company has absolute no redeeming quality that justifies the evil they carry with them. The difference between Amazon and Oracle is that Oracle doesn't hide the fact that you're getting raped. Amazon likes to pretend their your friend and do it without you noticing if they can.
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Over the summer would be awesome. Less reruns. With modern seasons so short, it would make up the difference. It sucks that 80s tv shows had 26 episodes or something and today we get 18 if we're lucky.
I'm not so sure about the "tween-lit adaptions", but as for the rest i'm not seeing any problem here, other than that i might want to subscribe to cable again. And is having a compelling enough line-up to make me want to subscribe really a problem?
----- "I'm still sane on three planets and two moons."
The Nielsen company also indicates that Nielsen ratings remain the premier audience measurement metric in the modern world and will remain so regardless of new, internet-based fads.
Let the networks die with the rest of the Luddites and their business models. I'll happily continue to consume my niche entertainment streaming a la carte from the likes of Netflix and Amazon. I have no interest in hundreds of channels worth of mass consensus crap. I have even less interest when its for ridiculous sums of money.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
Case in point, Two and a Half Men...
Their argument is stupid and pointless.
There are plenty of people who only enjoy watching honey booboo that have the interwebs, unfortunately the rest of us have to suffer the side effects of stupid management.
I'm really baffled how shows like 24 stay on the air for years, and shows like The Agency, Jericho, and Terra Nova get canceled?
I'm sick of the real catty housewives of the next urban location. I'm tired of Dodgy the bountiful hunter, and every lame "re-enacted" reality shows like Operacion Repo.
Funny thing, one of the biggest offenders was called "Real TV", but there was too much reality and they went to "truTV".
Reality happens in real life, there isn't anything "real" on TV, it's either streamed with factual errors and no supporting information, "produced", or "re-enacted", nobody show "reality" because it wouldn't be salacious or dramatic enough.
"the entire broadcast schedule might be nothing but sci-fi shows, tween-lit adaptions and whatever Joss Whedon wants to do"
I'll take the tween-lit if I can have the other two!
Having pilots judged by online viewers would give networks a skewed sense of what might work in the fall — the entire broadcast schedule might be nothing but sci-fi shows, tween-lit adaptions and whatever Joss Whedon wants to do ...
So why is this a problem?
Some pilots get shown to execs, green-lighted, and are then shot again to be the first episode the public sees, generally also known as a "pilot." Quality between the two can vary greatly. As much as we like to bash studio execs, they do know they're seeing a potentially "rough" version the first time through and will allow for that. The general public probably won't. Before there's a money commitment, quality will probably be below average. The result would be a lot of shows with mediocre production values getting trashed and nearly nothing getting approved.
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Every pilot season the torrent sites are full with new pilots, I was under the impression 'leaking' those was a matter of policy.
And if they're not using the information from those torrents they're bigger idiots than I give them credit for.
At the rate things are going, the main reason people still watch TV on cable is sports and the lack of content being broadcast directly on the Internet. NetFlix and Amazon Instant Video are changing the landscape. With two different content providers now producing their own shows, it's only a matter of time before other studios will either have to open up to online distribution or be left behind. When that happens, cable/satellite TV will only have sports left.
AJ Henderson
"Should TV Networks Put Pilots Online For Judgement Like Amazon Is Doing?"
Does it matter? The content selection process is only one of the many things wrong with broadcast TV. They could do this and maybe survive another year or two, but in the medium-long run it will not matter.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
A major network will be looking for a show that can sustain x number of million people per show and they have to build up hype months in advance. Building up hype by releasing the pilots and letting social media take care of some of the work gives you free advertising and another crowd watching sample to analyze.
Exactly, best case you'll end up paying $50 for a 26 episode season, that you can watch ONCE. Box set would cost the same and you'd own them.
Not true... at least, not if someone actually came out with a fair pricing model. I know that Hulu, cable companies, et al are getting tons for advertising, but they're not getting that much per viewing. Advertising is effective, but it isn't that effective. They'd never be able to maintain advertisers if they charged that much. It just wouldn't be worth it to advertise.
No, the reasons for those exorbitant prices (or advertising) are contractual. The studios can't sell boxed sets if the show is easier to get across the Internet. They're pricing themselves out of one revenue source because they're not willing to give up on another that they falsely perceive is more profitable.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
Put the shows streaming directly on the internet. User IP addresses allow you to target for advertizing. If they're popular, they'll easily pay for themselves. You also get better viewership stats and data, no need for Nielsen or any cable companies as a middleman. Also shows aren't burdened by awful scheduling which may limit viewers, and if you're clever enough you can go international instead of being region-locked and making everyone else wait a few months (or a week for bootleg copies).
But good luck. You're competing against the likes of YouTube and Vimeo. And their "good" channels are getting more pro every year.
The right question is not whether TV networks should post pilots for the public to judge, it's whether the production companies/studios that make the shows should post them so that public approval gets the show greenlighted by a studio.
I remember the Cartoon Network did a bunch of shorts more than fifteen years ago that people were supposed to vote on (by phone, because that's how we rolled back then). Johnny Bravo was the winner (deserved. I know it got bad later on, but that original short and the start of the series were funny as hell), Cow and Chicken and the Powerpuff Girls also came out of this little experiment. Maybe more, I don't remember.
I thought this was a brilliant way of coming up with new shows and it seemed successful from my perspective, but I don't think they ever did it again.
Intuitively I don't think that would be useful in the long term. I think they would get *some* data from edge cases, as people shift from one demographic to the other, but for the most part, they wouldn't get good data from the demographic as a whole. I mean, I only seek out or tolerate variation to my recreational media sources when that source is no longer an option or I become suddenly disinterested and need a change. Like my music tastes have varied consistent along with my age consistent with most demarcations of marketing demographics used by the industry.
I listened to punk ages 15-18. I listened to youth crew ages 18-22. I listened to metalcore 22-26. Now I listen to emo-rock. A lot of models say these age groups are when genre interests do not change, but that those who go from one group to the other, their genre interests DO change. When I was 20, do you think I would have ever sought out emo-rock? I don't go out of my way to discover new stuff when I'm settled in the middle of my demographic. I've already got my tv line-up figured out for the week. Why go pilot voting? What's my incentive? Why give up my already valuable time? How often do your entertainment needs change?
Besides, TV is not like movies and books. I have never been captivated by a single TV episode, but I have thoroughly rejected a lot of series based on a single episode. I've also thought a series was worthless but after repeated exposure I became a fan. Now, books, I can always tell if I'm going to like something within a few pages. I can always tell with movies whether I've made a mistake.
You might say that the episodic novel strategy on Amazon is similar to TV series' production and distribution, but I disagree. Just think: TV shows utilize multiple directors, writers, producers, plotlines, cast, character, setting (depending on the type of show); it's unpredictable, what draws us to books is cohesive of some element, like a character development or continuing conflict waiting to be resolved. A lot of tv series can make fans based on viewing a randomly selected episode; cohesion may be a necessary element of tv show, but it is not the primary draw.
I'm sure their house mathematicians, psychologists, risk managers, and marketers have already told the execs that it won't work. Hopefully their outside consultants also will agree.
Fuck Nielsen. They have no room to talk about poor sampling!
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We could put our shows out for a bunch of geeks to watch and judge by a demographic known to be rather critical of everything and hostile to advertising...OR we could just make 3 more reality shows, 2 more police procedurals, a lawyer show, and whatever dumb idea the boss's nephew comes up with, and come out way ahead the masses.
Seriously, if they really want to use the Internet for pilots, they should first spam out links to the videos, then halfway through demand people for their Facebook ids and passwords to see the rest. Shows which get the most Facebook passwords are most popular with fools who are easily separated from their money, and should be picked up.
I don't really see why the networks would do this. They're probably better at judging the shows themselves than trying decipher the online opinion. And they may not like the idea of the public seeing an early version before they've had a chance to tinker. For Amazon it's probably a good idea for the PR value and they don't have the same show picking experience.
One thing I could see on the other hand is a show releasing its own pilot online. Say they're having trouble getting picked up or they want to drive up their price. Release the pilot on the Internet, build some momentum, and come to the table with a ready made fanbase.
I stole this Sig
Read a good book, go for a walk, be creative with something, cook, garden, there is no need for TV.
I still think all the networks should all go in together and put up a network that only shows unaired pilots, cancelled mid-season replacements and whatever else was swept up off the cutting room floor. Sure, selling ads would be tough; run it at a loss, take the writeoff and maybe, just maybe a hidden gem is finally given a chance to shine. Probably never happen, given that they won't even release the rights to anything they felt unworthy of airing.
Sports.
Even if you don't watch or buy the sporto packages, you're still forced to subsidise paying the demands of sports both professional and collegiate (think: March Madness).