CW had a pretty interesting pilot season this year. They ultimately decided to cast a wide net, picking up: a comic book show, a prime-time soap reboot, a military drama, and an hour-long comedy. Given the network’s inherent difficulties in drawing eyeballs, you have to wonder if such a broad approach is smart.
Andrew Woodberry
I’ll give this to CBS: they are completely unapologetic. People say their shows are too white, don’t have enough female leads, that their dramas are too procedural, that their comedies are hacky. If you go purely by Nielsen ratings, I guess they’ve done OK with that strategy to date.
ABC probably had the most interesting pilot season among the networks. Unlike the competition, they filmed a pretty healthy number of pilots and picked up a pretty large percentage to series, granted many will be mid-season premieres.
Like NBC, Fox didn’t pick up as many pilots this year. They did, however, pick up a pretty large percentage of those pilots to series, particularly on the drama side. Does that mean they’re giving up on comedy? Not really.
It was a weird pilot season. No network embodied that statement more than NBC. The craziness in a nutshell: the most coveted timeslot in all of television, between Will & Grace and This is Us, is going to sophomore series Great News, whose renewal was iffy as recently as two weeks ago.
This season has a lot of pilots shot, but not a lot of schedule room. How these pilots come in may determine the fate of 2 Broke Girls and The Great Indoors. Let’s see if the network will fare better than last season.
New ABC Network president Channing Dungey had an important decision last year: greenlight more family comedies or add other types of comedy to their strong lineup. She went with a bit of both and now they are bursting at the seams with half-hours.
Fox has recently taken a cautious approach to comedy development, but now that New Girl is likely canceled, and Last Man on Earth may be winding down soon, Fox has to get a bit more aggressive.
A few years ago, NBC comedy was in a bad place. Though critically adored and beloved by many, flagship shows Parks & Rec and 30 Rock simply weren’t ratings juggernauts, so NBC had a choice to make: go broader with comedy development or continue to focus on smaller, quality projects. As with most things in television, the pursuit of money won out.
With last year’s pilots Frequency and No Tomorrow both unlikely to see renewals, The CW is looking for a big hit that isn’t attached to the DC universe and can add to the critical clout they’ve gained with Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and Jane the Virgin. See what’s next for the CW in our preview of their 2017 drama pilots.
The Tracking Board presents the 4th annual edition of The Runway! The premise is simple: we read, review and prognosticate on the future of every single network show picked up to pilot. So fasten your seatbelts, because pilot season is about to take off.
In the midst of this week’s network upfronts, The Runway contributors Andrew Woodberry and Ashish Mehta discuss what got picked up, what didn’t, and why. On Thursday, The CW delivered the last of the network upfront presentations, celebrating the arrival of Supergirl as well as a few new series to the fall schedule.
In the midst of this week’s network upfronts, The Runway contributors Andrew Woodberry and Ashish Mehta discuss what got picked up, what didn’t, and why. On Wednesday, it was The Eye’s turn to present their upcoming schedule to Madison Avenue and present the latest trailers for the new series.
In the midst of this week’s network upfronts, The Runway contributors Andrew Woodberry and Ashish Mehta discuss what got picked up, what didn’t, and why. On Tuesday, ABC revealed a few sneak peaks of some of the shows that will hit the Alphabet in the fall.
In the midst of this week’s network upfronts, The Runway contributors Andrew Woodberry and Ashish Mehta discuss what got picked up, what didn’t, and why. On Monday, Fox followed up NBC with its upfront presentation, unveiling nearly a dozen new shows that will be joining the network’s schedule.
In the midst of this week’s network upfronts, The Runway contributors Andrew Woodberry and Ashish Mehta discuss what got picked up, what didn’t, and why. On Monday, NBC held its upfront presentation, so how is The Peacock’s fall schedule shaping up?
The end of pilot season is always a little bittersweet. On the one hand, we’ll get to see the visions of the writers come to life, with a select few making it to series. On the other hand, we have to wait another nine months for a new crop of pilot scripts to be released to the world. It’s time to recap this year’s 2016 network pilot season.
After approximately 148 years on air, the fat lady has finally sung for American Idol, leaving a giant gaping 2-hour hole in Fox’s weekly schedule. This could be a boon for comedy showrunners, drama showrunners, or both. Let’s find out what’s in the pipeline with our preview of Fox’s 2016 Comedy Pilots.
NBC Comedy in the early 2010’s was like The Titanic. Plenty of people were yelling “Iceberg right ahead!” It takes time to turn a boat around, as it took some time for NBC to finally admit that they should be going mainly after broad comedies. Let’s see where the Peacock stands in our preview of NBC Comedy pilots.
CBS took the unusual step last week of renewing 11 returning series, without addressing the fate of any freshman series. What does that tell us? It might indicate they’re waiting to get a feel for this year’s crop of pilots. Get the complete breakdown in our CBS Comedy pilots preview.
ABC has eleven dramas in contention, with another one already picked up to series. That’s a lot. Get the complete breakdown in our ABC Drama pilots preview.
With Paul Lee out at ABC, you’d expect their comedy lineup to be in shambles. That’s actually not the case though. See why in our ABC Comedy pilot season preview.
The Tracking Board presents the 3rd annual edition of The Runway! The premise is simple: we read, review and prognosticate on the future of every single network show picked up to pilot. So fasten your seatbelts, because pilot season is about to take off.
In the final edition of this year’s Runway, we examine what predictions were correct, what didn’t get picked up, and why!
The Runway dissects and examines each network’s string of pilot scripts to determine what will get picked up, what will be shelved, and why it matters. This week we break down all of the 2015 NBC Drama Pilots!
The Runway dissects and examines each network’s string of pilot scripts to determine what will get picked up, what will be shelved, and why it matters. This week we break down all of the 2015 CBS Drama Pilots!
The Runway dissects and examines each network’s string of pilot scripts to determine what will get picked up, what will be shelved, and why it matters. This week we break down all of the 2015 CBS Drama Pilots!
The Runway dissects and examines each network’s string of pilot scripts to determine what will get picked up, what will be shelved, and why it matters. This week we break down all of the 2015 ABC Drama Pilots! See what we thought about the top ABC Drama pilot scripts and more!
We break down all of the 2015 NBC Comedy Pilots! See what we thought about the top NBC comedy pilot scripts and more!
We break down all of the 2015 FOX Comedy Pilots! See what we thought about the top FOX comedy pilot scripts and more!
