My Spring Sellers’ Guide has covered what shows they’re buying at Netlfix and Apple TV. I host Ankler Agenda and wrote about millennials’ challenges and Gen Z’s entry pains in the current jobs landscape. Email me at elaine@theankler.com
I’m back from my annual pilgrimage to New York for Upfronts, where major broadcasters, cablers and streamers laid out their next-year wares — and reminded everyone that scripted TV is still fighting for oxygen amid the live sports boom. (Check out the new episode of Ankler Agenda, where Sean McNulty and Natalie Jarvey and I break down the major takeaways.)
Which makes this a good moment to return to my Spring Sellers’ Guide, now trained on the House of Mouse: what Disney platforms already have on the schedule, what they have in development and, most importantly, where there’s still room to sell.
The short answer: not everywhere.
At Upfronts, Disney offered up a fairly robust slate of scripted TV that included a 13th season of American Horror Story on FX, starring Love Story’s Paul Anthony Kelly, and Hulu psychological drama The Spot, featuring Claire Danes and Ewan McGregor, as well as a new show from Dan Fogelman, and Ryan Murphy’s adaption of Bret Easton Ellis novel The Shards.
As my colleague Lesley Goldberg tallied in her excellent broadcast scorecard, linear network ABC ordered just one new series, The Rookie: North, and renewed all 10 of its original series ahead of Upfronts, including Abbott Elementary, High Potential and Grey’s Anatomy.
While ABC is packed, Hulu’s development slate is robust but crowded, and FX remains one of TV’s great prestige buyers — but, true to form, its target can be maddeningly hard to define.
No wonder reps can feel stymied trying to get their clients a foot in the door for a general or pitch meeting. (Disney+ is its own separate world, and I’ll cover what its execs are looking for in a separate Sellers’ Guide.)
“I mean, they say they’re very excited about comedy, and then, as you saw this year, [ABC] renewed all their shows and didn’t end up ordering any new comedy pilots, so it can be really challenging,” one TV lit agent tells me. “If you go through a new development cycle and don’t have information on whether or not there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, it can be quite frustrating.”
But attracting buyer interest at Disney is art more than science. Today:
- How to fight for Hulu’s “very limited real estate” as its dev slate keeps growing
- Disney’s murderers’ row of overall deals — and where newer voices can still break through
- Two genre sweet spots that always hit at Hulu — plus the code words to use for comedies to catch its attention
- Who’s actually leading creative at FX, ABC and Hulu — and which lieutenants reps praise most
- Why FX’s “vague” target is still worth chasing
- The two FX EVPs with “a lot of political capital”
- Inside ABC and Hulu’s slightly janky exec structure and genre split
Don’t stop here
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