What network TV bosses aren't saying

The television upfronts in New York are just days away. This is when the major US networks gather together hundreds of advertisers to announce their autumn primetime schedules and screen splashy presentations of their new shows selected from the handfuls of pilots they made months earlier. Some $10bn of business is expected to be done. For creatives, who sometimes only learn that their show is being picked up hours before, the suspense can be excruciating.

I’m going to be the one to say the tough stuff. Here goes: the system doesn’t work anymore. It’s outmoded and the networks need to find a different way of doing things. For one thing, it’s incredibly wasteful. According to insiders, the one-in-ten princicple applies - one in ten TV scripts are bought, eventually made into pilots, then go to air. It’s a wonder the shareholders aren’t up in arms. Perhaps the gift bags really are that good.

I’ve had a look at all the new network drama pilots and I think I can safely predict a large number of early cancellations. And I doubt very much if there will be any break-out hits. Why? Because all the networks have played it safe. All I can see is a string of clichés, lazy stereotypes and unimaginative casting. Network TV is a landscape where all the women are beautiful with “rocking bods” and the men are heroic.

Make no mistake, these are difficult times. Never before have we had so many different forms of entertainment to choose from. However, television remains the most popular medium and people are watching more TV than ever before. A recent Nielsen report revealed that we watch an average of four hours and 39 minutes of TV a day.

This year, the networks have been disappointingly risk-averse. I have to ask, where is television’s answer to Steve Jobs? The person willing to shake things up? Now is the time for visionaries, not cronies.

The landscape on network TV for drama is growing increasingly difficult. Let’s take a look at some of last year’s casualties. The Playboy Club was one of the first to go. Then came Prime Suspect starring Maria Bello, NBC’s Southland, and let’s not forget Steven Spielberg’s Terra Nova, the most expensive TV show ever made.

“It’s a bad system,” says Steve Levitan the co-creator of Modern Family. Because of the timing, casting directors are all chasing actors from a relatively small talent pool at the same time.  “It’s a giant game of musical chairs. You’re forced to make a decision before you’re ready because if you don’t, you’ll lose them,” Levitan adds.

All the networks are in the doldrums; all have lost audience share. As the studios struggle to develop new business, it feels very much as though we are in a creative vacuum. It doesn’t feel as though anyone is trying to find compelling original content.

I’m keeping my eye on Netflix. The movies-on-demand service is remaking British show House of Cards with Kevin Spacey and has also bought cult favourite, Arrested Development. They could well create a new model for content delivery. Network bosses take note.

Note to CBS: about your new Sherlock Holmes pilot, Elementary. If you want a hit series, replace Jonny Lee Miller with another British actor, Christopher McKay, (of Me & Orson Welles fame). Quite frankly, I am astounded that no one has snapped up this phenomenal actor for a pilot already. McKay makes Hugh Laurie look like a table leg.