A decade ago, as many as 100 broadcast pilots would be casting right now. This year, a total of three, all at NBC
by Ripclawe
A decade ago, as many as 100 broadcast pilots would be casting right now. This year, a total of three, all at NBC
by Ripclawe
14 comments
Relevant passages:
>**Non-Existent 2024 Pilot Season**
>A decade ago, as many as 100 broadcast pilots would be casting right now. This year, we have a total of three, all at NBC. In addition to a shot at an on-air series, a casting in a pilot provides a life line for hundreds of actors with a paycheck that helps them qualify for the union’s health insurance.
>Broadcast networks had already been pulling away from pilots — they don’t really factor into Fox’s development model, and the new CW’s scripted slate relies predominantly on international co-productions. (With few exceptions, basic cable networks, which also employ pilots, have retreated from original scripted programming altogether.)
>Still, after the physical and emotional toll of the strikes on actors, many of whom lived off savings and odd jobs for six months, they had been looking forward to the 2024 pilot season for some semblance of normalcy.
>Because of the effects of the strikes, which delayed production of new and existing series and development of new ones, that was never really in the cards. An anticipated flood of series castings immediately after the end of SAG-AFTRA work stoppage didn’t materialize either.
>“Fewer actors are auditioning this year for pilots vs. previous seasons, and actors are really feeling the emotional effect,” one casting director said. “Competition for the few series regular roles that are available is much more intense.”
>The same applies to name actors getting offers. NBC’s Suits: LA pilot cast Arrow and Heels star Stephen Amell as its lead.
>During pilot season we would normally have a feeding frenzy for TV stars of his caliber. But, because of the contraction, with broadcast volume going down, pilots drying up and streamers often going for feature names, there are dozens of proven TV stars in their 30s, 40s and 50s — all of whom have headlined hit series — that have been sidelined for months (some for a year or two) with no major job prospects.
Theres barely anything new happening at all. My guild estimated something like 25% of people working compared to last year at this time. Anecdotally I know only a handful of people working, definitely less than 10, and theyre all on returning shows that had full crews before the strikes. Usually its the other way where I struggle to find unemployed friends to recommend to people.
Taps forehead: we don’t have to cancel anything if we don’t make anything!
Industry member here, Camera and Production departments. Of all my contacts I am the only one working and I’ve worked two and half weeks since November. It’s brutal right now. I’ve been thinking the past month that there’s a desire for quality stories either televised/streamed or cinematic but there’s no desire for companies to pay for it. There’s been so many mergers and the major players have diversified to the point the entertainment sides are insignificant. I feel like with the boutique market for physical media maybe we’ll see a boutique market of indie media from production to distribution that may counteract the big companies that want to focus on their $250M+ box office bombs and their original series for their unsustainable streaming models.
Edit: to add to this the industry has always favored nepotism and privilege among it’s ranks. A lot of people think it’s primarily above-the-line but they’re riff within the rank and file from PAs up. With the industry contractions it’s become an increasing problem that only people of wealth and privilege can even afford to join the industry as the most basic and unskilled labor. Creativity thrives on opportunity and opportunity cannot exist without class mobility.
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So now you can watch your single season of a show that didn’t get renewed in a streaming service that your friends don’t have and not talk about it with anyone you know. There are no water cooler conversations about TV shows any more and now there are no jobs in the industry.
Huh, it’s like flooding the market with more “content” than anybody can possibly watch ended up having negative impacts on the industry. Who knew?
The TV era I grew up with is dying…
There are still a few good shows on broadcast TV but so much trash reality shows and tired detective/police/firefighter crap.
Actors hoping it will get better should have a plan B going because it’s not going to. The way things are now, studio profits per show are likely to increase as they discover less is more. From that, they will decide to stay at less for the foreseeable future.
With streaming continuing to replace cable and high odds of streaming services merging until there are just three or four, it also means they will not want to release content in such a way that they end up competing for eyeballs with themselves so roll out of series will be similar to summer tentpole movies except since series that releases one episode a month, it would be like four studios each releasing a tentpole movie every two or so months. In short, it’s slow now and it is going to get worse.
For those that consume this content, it’s not going to matter as would be just enough new stuff that keeping up will remain difficult.
That strike fucked things up, gonna take a while to correct itself if it ever does.
The studios/networks/streamers are desperate to blame anyone but themselves for this.
People want good stories to invest their time in. They want strong characters to return to on a weekly basis. Everyone’s tired of 8 hour movies being chopped up into a TV dramedy.
Give us a reason to tune in! Stop crossing your fingers and hoping your, dull, algorithmic content does gangbusters. It just won’t. It has no soul.
This sucks, but let’s not call the end of TV.
This is what happens when all bubbles come to an end.
Just like in tech now, finance in 07, building in the UK from 04-09, sometimes markets expand and it attracts a lot of new people into the field. Then eventually there is some type of shock.
I had mates who were architects who went to UK and did 9 interviews and got 8 job offers. 2 years later the financial crisis hit and building design for the Olympics slowed. They lost their jobs and when applying there was 600 applicants for any role.
Over the last 5 years we had every person becoming a software engineer. “Everyone had to learn to code”. Then we had project type people and recruiters around that. A lot of the excess is going away now with the bubble bursting.
Yet there are still architects. And there are still tech workers.
Unfortunately this will be a contraction era as the industry reverts to the norm and then finds a way to move forward. Hopefully most people find a way to make it work in the mean time.
I believe they are waiting for the IATSE negations to conclude before doing any productions. Making there desire to strike less and be able to do better in contract negotiations because of it.
My dumbass was thinking airline or helicopter pilot lol