5 TV Agents Reveal What's Selling Now
'Prestige-urals' are hot; 'The Bear'-like shows, not. A breakdown of what Netflix, Disney+, Hulu,, Amazon, Max and HBO are buying
The next Ozark. Or Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Prestige-urals. “White Man With a Gun” shows. (Guess which streamer the agents are talking about on that last one?)
What are the major streamers looking for this spring? The TV marketplace isn’t exactly buzzing, but there is still activity. So we went to five different scripted-TV agents at the major agencies across town to find out what kind of conversations they and their writer/producer clients are having with the likes of Netflix, Hulu, Max, Amazon and Disney+.
With each streamer and network focused on a narrow programming mandate, it has become all the more important that writers and producers walk into pitch meetings knowing exactly what the buyer wants — because as more than one person tells me, there might not be much room to rework an idea once it’s out there. The vibe is very We’ll take it . . . or leave it completely alone.
“Execs around town are so scared to lose their jobs, more than they've ever been,” says one agent. “That's creating this level of fear that I've never experienced, where they’re so scared to take swings.
“It just feels like there's this general sense overall in the marketplace of people who are like, ‘I don't want to put myself out there for this project if it's not perfect,” this agent adds. “That makes it really hard. Because it used to be: If you sent something and it wasn't perfect, they would just develop the script [anyway], because who knows?”
Another rep at a different agency echoes the sentiment, telling me people are “skittish” to pitch in this climate.
“This is the first time in my career where I’m hearing from [studio and network] friends, ‘You don't even want to bring that in right now,’” he says. “Or, ‘If you absolutely need me to hear it, I will, but I'm telling you, it's just not going to happen.”
So in this week’s Series Business, we’ll take a look at:
A streamer-by-streamer breakdown of what six big buyers — Netflix, Max, HBO, Disney+, Hulu, and Amazon — want
The one place agents say they are having the most luck selling right now
Which genres and subgenres are in vogue
Why no one seems to want more shows like the most acclaimed show on TV — The Bear
How “hard funny” comedies became so appealing
The friction between safe reboot bets vs. riskier originals that could define a streamer or network — and what’s winning
What definitely isn’t selling right now