Best of ’25: TV Seller Guides, Amazon & WB Chaos, 10 Top Exec Q&As
Essential intel to keep you working smarter into next year
Congrats, folks, you survived ’til and through ’25. To hear you tell it, the year in some ways turned out better than expected. You found work where work was to be found, and you got back into pitch rooms and landed new jobs, all while bracing for the ways AI and the next big studio merger will reshape the business.
If I had to describe the TV industry in one word, I’d say 2025 was a year of resilience. As Manori Ravindran reported from the U.K. and Lesley Goldberg and I covered here in Los Angeles, everyone in Hollywood — writers, actors, reps, execs — found ways to do more with less, even as a lot of corporate nonsense was flying overhead at the major TV studios.
Here on Series Business, we covered your work and worries, experiments and innovations, and how you navigated all the disruptions to the business of the small screen. The best of Series Business this past year is a clear reflection of the best in Hollywood too — creative, ambitious, enterprising. Plus, these stories offer a strong set of career wisdom you can use to lay your own path forward. Have a look at our insightful, in-depth coverage, and consider treating your team to more of it throughout 2026. Group subscriptions to The Ankler are 30% off for just three more days!
How to Make and Sell a Show
Let’s start with the big one: my multi-part, semiannual guide to all the genres and programming that streamers and networks are looking to buy, plus this fall I also went deep on the animation and unscripted markets. YA is big, comedies are back, budgets are down. But people are buying!
So once you understand the market and what’s in demand, here’s what you do when you enter the (often virtual) pitch room to sell your story — the tips and tricks to making a sale in the room, pitch decks and props and all. Also, big advice for the execs taking the pitch: Don’t mute yourself, okay?
Meanwhile, if you’re not in active development but looking to get into a room as a staff writer, Lesley gathered some grade-A guidance from execs and writers for how to get noticed when jobs are scarce.
And for some understanding about what’s driving the market right now, plus perspective on where it’s going, Lesley canvassed execs and creatives across TV to identify the showrunners of the moment — the ones with massive hits, sure, but also the ones who are seeing and setting the trends for the medium:
New Models & Microdrama Boom
How do you make a TV series look like a proverbial million bucks when you only have a couple hundred thou? How do you self-finance a show that you can then successfully sell to a distributor like Netflix? What’s the next format that everyone’s pouncing on while it’s still the Wild West?
These were the burning questions creatives were asking, so Series Business got you the answers. Manori, for starters, talked to some of the U.K.’s scrappiest producers to learn the secret sauce of making glossy shows at non-scripted prices.
Meanwhile, I talked to Mark Duplass, Cooper Raiff and Joe Lewis about their indie TV efforts. “When you look at a show like Baby Reindeer, which was made relatively cheaply — no existing stars, no IP, and then it goes out and wins all those awards — why wouldn’t you want to take shots on those things?” Duplass told me back in January.
And yeah, I know some of you are weary of hearing about microdramas, but can you really afford to dismiss one of the few production markets growing right now? Cons: The work is non-union, the stories are cheesy, the product doesn’t get much respect. Pros: Microdramas are cheap to make, they create jobs in L.A., and industry stalwarts like Lloyd Braun are jumping into the fray.
Consolidation & Doing More With Less
The executives are not okay. Just because major C-suiters get to rake in mega paydays, that doesn’t mean the wealth is trickling down to everyone at studios and production companies.
Manori unpacked a viral LinkedIn post about the creation of a new Bear Grylls project for Netflix that salted the wounds of many nonscripted development executives in both the U.K. and the U.S.
Stateside, Lesley talked to nervous staffers over the summer at Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount and NBCUniversal as looming mergers and spinoffs threatened to quake the ground they walk on. (Who would’ve thought the year would end with a Netflix-Warner Bros. mashup? Pretty much no one.) Plus, with all those cable channels up for grabs, she and Claire Atkinson dug in to see exactly exactly who might buy these distressed assets, and how long they can stay solvent.
Amid all of this consolidation, M&A and general industry disruption, industry Gen Xers find themselves in the midst of an existential and professional meltdown. “We grew up being told you can have it all, which — bullshit,” said producer and former Alloy Entertainment exec Gina Girolamo. Keep fighting the good fight, and know that we’ve got a lot more coming on the industry’s generational crises — plural! — in the new year.
At least one encouraging outcome arose from a major merger this year: the return of Netflix’s original tastemaker, Cindy Holland, to oversee streaming content at the newly combined Paramount Skydance under David Ellison.
The Executive Interviews
Offering up dealmaking scoops and strategy insights, some of TV’s top leaders sat down with me, Lesley and Manori this year. From Amy Reisenbach on CBS’ shopping list to Bell Media’s CEO and top programming exec on their big swing of the hockey stick — Heated Rivalry — we got the intel straight from the C-suite. Here are 10 top conversations:
Amazon Mess & Warners’ Wild Year
Lastly, not to harp on one studio in particular, but Amazon MGM Studios sure was going through it this year with a massive shakeup at the top — first with the departure of studio chief Jen Salke, then with the exit of TV head Vernon Sanders, and then with the surprise introduction of Peter Friedlander (who’d said he wasn’t heading anywhere after leaving Netflix).
Manori dug into Prime Video’s muddled strategy in the U.K., while Lesley and I asked the big questions at home about the next era of the Culver City studio. (The Wakeup’s Sean McNulty called out Friedlander on our super-sized Ankler Agenda winners and losers pod as one of the year’s big winners, so it can’t be all bad going into the new year…)
Meanwhile, the fate of Warner Bros. Discovery has been the story of Q4 and, no matter the outcome, will create an entirely new creative and business hierarchy in Hollywood. Lesley and I have been at it from multiple angles, and we’ll keep pressing for the inside stories that let you know who’s up, who’s down and what’s coming next.
And there you have it — the themes, stories and personalities that grabbed our attention and yours in 2025. What should we write about in 2026? Email me your hottest tips at elaine@theankler.com.
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