American TV schedules

[pensnest]

Can someone explain to me a bit about the timetable for a US TV series?

When a pilot is made, is it only shown to TV executives and/or a test audience unless/until the show is commissioned? I assume these pilots aren't broadcast, but am I wrong? And does anybody know, or know where I can find out, how far in advance a pilot is made before the commissioned show starts shooting, and how far in advance shooting is before broadcasting? There must, presumably, be places on the web which talk about this process for particular series, but I don't know where to look. Is there a difference in the procedure between the big networks and the cable networks? A difference in the number of shows in a season? (Why does Leverage have fifteen and Buffy about 22?)

Also, whenabouts do new series generally start? Is it the autumn, with the November sweeps being the first of the TV year and July being the last, or am I confused on that? I might be getting it mixed up with my own performance schedule, but Buffy has Halloween, and Bones has Christmas episodes, and so on...

Comments

[quiet000001]

Um. The answer is... It depends. On many things. :)

Generally, with pilots, they're not shot to be aired, they're shot to be shopped around and possibly aired. (Very rarely you'll get a pilot being reshot as a result, if one of the key actors had to be recast for some reason.) That said, they seem to have a short shelf life - I don't know if it's because people just remember having seen it before, or if changes in technology and style mean that something shot a couple of years ago will risk looking dated which will negatively effect the impression people form of the pilot, but they don't tend to hang around on the shelf and get shown over and over again until someone bites. They'll get shopped around for maybe one or two seasons of execs looking for new shows (shopping season != show airing seasons) and then the idea goes into the bin or sometimes back to the drawing board.

That said, I think it's also rare to have a pilot actually filmed as an entirely independent enterprise - normally a network will say 'okay, this is an interesting idea' and chip in some or all of the cost of filming a pilot. Which they may or may not then buy. (But if they've funded the pilot, I would be highly surprised if that funding didn't come with first dibs on buying the show. If they don't buy, if it can be shopped elsewhere probably depends on the contracts involved.)

How far in advance shooting of the actual series starts before broadcasting again depends somewhat on the show and the various creative people involved (if you really want a Big Name Actor, for example, you might shift your shooting schedule around to fit his availability even if it results in something atypical for TV in general.) Also, I'm pretty sure it's different for fictional shows like NCIS vs. reality TV or 'documentary' shows. (Obviously, some reality TV is also live, so that wouldn't be filmed in advance.)

For a major network, they seem to start shooting ~3 months before the air date for the first episode (SPN starts in July-ish and the first ep is generally around the end of Sept) and then they try to stay on filming an episode a week from there forward, with breaks for holidays and shifts for major episodes like mid-season finale and season finale episodes which they might want more filming time for.

The difference between Leverage and Buffy is due to the time of year the show airs - the 'big time' season is the longer one that Buffy/Bones/etc get, which starts in the early fall and ends sometime in spring and runs 20+ episodes. A while ago, though, some clever person realized that people get sick of watching reruns during the summer, and so the summer season turned up - cable channels take advantage of the summer season a lot for their own original programming, rather than competing head to head with new episodes of successful shows on the major networks. So Leverage and White Collar and other shows that run 15-18 eps typically are often made for the summer season market - they'll start up end of May/early June and run through August sometime, normally.

(The seasons don't seem to butt right up against each other - there seem to be a couple of weeks between them on either end which get filled in with reruns. That means that there's little risk of overlapping with one of the shows you're trying to avoid competing with, plus it gives them some time to show reruns of the previous season that might be relevant to getting into the new season opener, and maybe get some new viewers hooked.)

Um. I probably actually know more, but my head hurts right now. If you have more questions, lemme know and I'll get out my history of entertainment tv notes or poke around a bit or email my one prof if I don't know the answer. :)

[pensnest]

Thank you! This is extremely helpful. All sorts of useful information. I'm writing a story which will involve a show which is, I think, a bit more 'progressive' than most network shows, so it looks as though a cable network will suit it nicely. I'll probably come up against questions as I go along, and quite probably won't even notice that I haven't asked the right question - may I send it to you at some point to look over? I want to make sure it seems plausible.

[quiet000001]

Yeah, cable networks are generally more likely to take 'risks' - it's a combination of being able to have a relatively low investment in the show (shorter seasons, sometimes actors who aren't as well known, that sort of thing) and not being entirely dependent on advertising for revenue.

The major networks by virtue of being the major networks have key demographics that they target, but they have to try to keep programming accessible to as many people as possible in addition to the key demographic, since the goal is to get the biggest slice of the pie and bring in more advertising dollars.

Not that cable companies aren't trying to get as much of the advertising pie as they can also, but they do have some money coming in from the fact that people PAY for cable, plus one of the ways cable networks compete in the first place is by aiming for a niche audience that the major networks might be missing because it's too specific a target. Like you have the cable networks that are clearly aimed at all guys, all the time, with car shows and reruns of guy shows, and whatever excuses they can come up with to have girls in bikinis on shows...

On top of that, cable networks are more likely than the major networks to rely on syndication to provide a big chunk of programming, even during 'normal' viewing hours. (Because it's stupid to put your relatively expensive in-house original series up against new episodes of whatever network series has been at the top of the ratings for years.) Again, that's cheaper than having to find or produce new programming, so it frees up some funds. (Plus, depending on the syndication deal, they may basically have the freedom to use the show they've bought syndication rights to as often as they want - so if an original series does tank completely, they know they have something that will bring in some kind of moderate viewing numbers sitting in their 'library' that they can put up in the time slot.)

Of course, then you also have the big cable networks like HBO that are a bit different - HBO can reasonably expect that one of their top original shows (like The Sopranos) might have a legitimate chance at fighting for viewers with the major networks, at least within the percentage of people who have cable and therefore can decide to watch HBO instead of NBC or CBS or ABC. :) But something like TNT, particularly if they're just starting to break into actually making/buying original programming? They're likely to be willing to take a little more of a chance. They kind of need to - if they're not offering something significantly different from what's on the other channels, why would anyone bother to find them out of the fifty billion cable channels they get, you know?

Anyway, yes. I'll have a look and do my best when you're finished, if you'd like. :) my username here @ hotmail should work fine - just let me know you've sent it so I can look for it because sometimes I miss stuff. (I've had that email address for a while so it gets a lot of junk mail too, and not all of it gets caught by the spam filter, you know how it is. :) )

[pensnest]

Right! I have a few more questions, if that's okay. It's not until you start trying to write this stuff that you realise how much you don't know...

I'm going to assume that the big network doesn't want the show, but that it gets picked up fairly quickly by a cable network. Can you suggest a cable network that would get a good-sized audience and be reasonably liberal about what can be shown? The concept of the show is mostly family-friendly but the casting will be as all-encompassing as possible.

I remember from Star Trek:TNG days that they used to film an episode in seven days. Do you know if that means a solid filming schedule, or if they have weekends off? I'd assumed the latter, in the expectation that weekends would mean overtime for the crew, as well as possible exhaustion for crew and cast.

Any idea how long post-production on a show would be likely to take?

Also, about when would trailers for a new show start airing? I'm assuming my cast would start doing some kind of promotion—I'm thinking radio and perhaps TV appearances—would this continue during the season?

Finally (for now!), can you suggest an airtime which would be seen as a good airtime and likely to lead to the show finding an audience? I'm assuming it'd be looking for under-25s as the primary audience, and was thinking of perhaps a Tuesday or Wednesday—what sort of time?

[puszysty.livejournal.com]

I don't know the answer to your first question, but as to the second, seasons start in August-September, and end in May-June, with a break around Christmas. (Christmas episodes tend to air a week before Christmas, then the show goes on break until January or February) Basically the tv season corresponds with the American school year.

There are occasionally a few shows that start in summer, then will join the regular schedule later if the ratings were good enough. Reality tv has weird timetables, and there isn't an easy way to summarize those.

[pensnest]

I had a feeling it might correspond with the school year, but I wasn't altogether sure if I was just getting that from my current re-watch of 'Buffy'! Many thanks.

[suzilem.livejournal.com]

There can be more than one pilot for a given show, and the pilot might be/might not be the first show in the series. As I recall, Kirk wasn't the captain in the first Star Trek pilot and on Love Boat, the casting of the ship's doctor changed between pilot 1 and pilot 2.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cage_(Star_Trek:_The_Original_Series)

[msktrnanny.livejournal.com]

Oooh, great example!! I'd forgotten all about the Love Boat thing. Kirk replacing Pike is an excellent example though, and a famous one to boot.

[pensnest]

Ah, yes, cast changing! (Which I've actually imported into the background for the story I'm writing, though I haven't used it yet. Hah.) Thanks for the reminder. I know they messed about with the 'Firefly' pilot in a very peculiar way.

[msktrnanny.livejournal.com]

For the big networks the standard season runs from September to May. In that time frame shows debut or premiere anywhere from the mid of September to November. [didn't used to be that way] New shows usually debut earlier, but there is also the 'mid season replacement series' which comes in around mid January. A full season also used to mean 22-24 episodes. Some shows still run with that but it's usually closer to 18-22 these days. Sweeps are November and February.

For the cables it's an entirely different story. Many run something called 'split' seasons: 8-12 episodes over the summer and 4-8 over the December-January hiatus of the big network programs. [Leverage is a cable show and runs a split season. Buffy was a smaller network behaving like a big one, so standard season]

Pilot Season... Here's an article that talks about it a bit. Pilot season sort of runs from January to April but the business is every changing so that's not as strict as it used to be. Pilots can be commissioned, shopped around, tested and shelved for later use.

If a pilot is not picked up it usually disappears or becomes the stuff of legend. The latter often ends up on the internet these days. It is not aired.

When a pilot is picked up it can be tweaked, recast, reshot and often dropped after a combination of those things happen to it. They're usually heading for a fall release/premiere. Occasionally they're for mid season pick-up. Sometimes what is shown and touted at upfronts isn't what makes it to air in the fall.

Cable vs Big Networks is often the quality of show. BN's are looking at numbers and they want them to be BIG. Big numbers means big dollars and that's the goal. Cable networks often thing 5 million is HUGE. But, with smaller season's, usually lesser known actors and lower production costs, they can afford to focus on the quality. It's made USA network, TNT, and SciFi [sorry, can't type the other way, makes my head spin] players in the industry in a way people probably thought would never happen. [side note: SciFi has some shows that might very well have staggering production costs]

Big networks get backing from more advertisers, can afford bigger names, higher production costs and garner larger numbers. An example: NCIS on CBS was renewed for its coming 9th season after two weeks of getting 20+million viewers. Franklin & Bash on TNT renewed for a second season averaging 4 million viewers.

Helpful at all or just confusing?

[pensnest]

This is most helpful - thank you very much. I'm sure I remember seeing comments about 'The Good Wife' that it was weird to see it as a network show - presumably because it's really cool? I'm definitely getting a clearer idea of what I'm doing with this story.

And I don't blame you for spelling SciFi in an intelligent way, because, really.