The idea of doing away with pilot season has been floating around for a while. I don't think it's all that terrible. Fewer shows get shot, but if they get that far they're going to air. It also means that if you want to take more than one episode to set up your story, you can. Pilots tend to suck because they have the burden of selling the show to both the network and the audience.

Tim signed some scripts for Cash for the Crew.

The "Skin & Bone" note made me snort.

Hee, yeah. I sort of covet the "Karma Chameleon" one.

I can't help but wonder if a bulk of the pilots might not move online, ala "Quarterlife" -- let the show build buzz, then move it onto the networks if it looks like it's got legs.

Even if I don't watch it, I like knowing it's there.

With the kids out of school Friday and Monday I watched Days and noted 2 things. First, you can apparently watch twice a year and not miss anything. Second, they are showing about 70% flashbacks with bits of dialog in between. I don't know how the show is still on the air.

I also watched General Hospital and they didn't have any flashbacks and seemed to be progressing with new story lines and characters. Either they had a big stash of scripts, or writers hidden away.

But "Quarterlife" is bad. It wouldn't have lasted 3 eps if it was shown on tv first. I wonder how long it will last on NBC. It might last only because NBC doesn't have anything else to show, but I don't find anything about it making me want to watch ep after ep.

I'd be curious to see the alternative to pilot season--in the UK the seasons are shorter, so the investment risk is different.

And I don't think that there are really "seasons" at all, at least the way we think of them. the shows come on for a while, do a certain number of episodes, then go off for a while. Sometimes they come back, sometimes they don't. I think thats why british shows are classified as "Series 1" instead of "season 1".

But "Quarterlife" is bad. It wouldn't have lasted 3 eps if it was shown on tv first. I wonder how long it will last on NBC. It might last only because NBC doesn't have anything else to show, but I don't find anything about it making me want to watch ep after ep.

Like a bad TV show has never been succesful before. Except for, like, most TV shows. Let's face it, a good chunk of succesful television is horrible.

But that's all beside the point -- the important thing about "Quarterlife" isn't the show itself, it's the business model. It's going to be a lot easier and more time efficient to throw a pilot or even a few "Webisodes" up on the net and see if they catch on than it is to eat up valuable airtime with a pilot for a show that might only last three episodes.

victor, but I'm not talking bad sitcoms, which magically seem to stay on forever. I'm talking bad Fox dramas.

Since the show doesn't have crime and each ep is difficult to view without having the background of previous eps, I just couldn't see this lasting on network tv traditionally.

Now, even with respect to the business model. I think they should keep this on the internet. I think NBC may very well be disappointed with the ratings when it starts airing on tv.

6% gain is in no way impressive or could have possibly been their target and I would love to see what the revenue was to create that profit.

In my world a 6% gain is impressive - we operate on such tight profit margins at my work our bonus is dependent on something like 0.1%. Still, the 'striked' quarter came out with 10% and overall higher audience figures from what I can gather - it's hardly as if NBC are having a viewer crisis at the minute.

Any revamp of the pilot process to save networks money translates to much less work for actors, writers, crew etc. That's the problem I see with this direction.

Kevin, NBC is the network in 4th place. Compare that to ten years ago when it was always in 1st. 10% higher than really shitty is still really shitty.

Single digit annual growth for an entertainment conglom is not good.

And I need to see your sources because I thought all networks were down year over year in the 4th quarter except for Fox. That was certainly true for November sweeps.

Ok, I went and found a source:

NBC Universal's TV network NBC has seen viewership decline by 8% when looking at commercial ratings plus three days of DVR usage--but almost double that when looking at live program ratings.

The NBC network is doing horribly. NBCU is being saved by double digit growth at the cable networks and film.