‘Stuff Is Selling’: Your Fall Guide to What Every TV Buyer Wants Now
Netflix, Apple, HBO, Disney: Agents and execs say the market is moving again, but with sharper tastes, fewer slots, and smart pitching mattering more than ever
I write about TV from L.A. I wrote about Gen X Hollywood’s career crisis, interviewed Lionsgate’s Scott Herbst about TV strategy and reported on the boom in microdramas and how L.A. sound stages are scrambling as production dwindles. I’m elaine@theankler.com
Hi! Welcome back to reality, a.k.a. the day after Labor Day. For those who missed its first run while on the beach or barbecuing, today I put together ALL the Sellers’ Guide entries that delivered top intel for the last few months. In the series, I covered what is being bought right now by the biggies at Netflix, Apple, HBO, all Disney brands, Peacock and Amazon, who makes the decisions and how to pitch them.
If you’re starting the season readying your pitch decks and firing up Zoom (hope you’ve got lots of visuals!), this is invaluable information as you take your project from buyer to buyer and tweak the opportunity for each one. And the news in the market is, for once, actually pretty good!
You can be heartened by these three words: “Stuff is selling.”
That’s what a high-level TV agent at a Big Three agency told me recently. “People are being really specific in what they’re buying, and buyers are not buying a ton,” this agent continues, so sales volume isn’t close to Peak TV levels, obviously, but it seems to be on the rise, and certainly up from the post-strikes valley.
You’ll notice that Paramount+ and CBS aren’t included this time around, because so much is in limbo as New Paramount sets its course. But by the new year, I imagine I’ll have more for you on that front.
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Without further ado, here’s all the intel I’ve gathered from agents, producers and studio execs so you can walk into any meeting armed with the information you need to go in strong. Now go get ’em!
APPLE TV+
Say what you will about Apple TV+’s fondness for A-listers and its overall whiff of elitism, but as a TV buyer, it knows what it wants. Series with major auspices like Seth Rogen’s The Studio or Jon Hamm starrer Your Friends & Neighbors are working for the streamer (which recently hiked its monthly price from $9.99 to $12.99), but I also name one popular genre that’s decidedly not in demand there.
AMAZON PRIME VIDEO
Reacher, Jack Ryan and other action-adventure heroes are still doing well for Prime Video, which has more of a global mandate than some of its competitors. As for Amazon’s reputation as the most dysfunctional development hub in town, that might just be changing, as you’ll see from the agent testimonials here.
HBO & HBO MAX
What’s old is new again, and like all things ’90s, procedurals are in high fashion once more — particularly at HBO Max. But not necessarily how you think. Overall, there’s still some confusion about the difference between HBO and HBO Max, and knowing how to pitch them can be a little tricky, since both platforms are governed by the same creative exec team, sort of. I've got the somewhat wonky structure laid out for you.
NBC & PEACOCK
NBC may have 30 Rock alum Tracy Morgan in a new broadcast comedy, and The Office spinoff The Paper is waiting in the wings at Peacock, but I was surprised to hear about the interesting — and perhaps muted — state of comedy development over at NBCUniversal, once home to Friends and other iconic sitcoms. Separately, I got my hands on the episodic budgets over on the drama side at Peacock.
DISNEY: ABC, FX & HULU
No surprise that a broadcast network like ABC doesn’t have many spots open on its roster, but agents had plenty of thoughts to share with me about streaming sister Hulu and prestige cable network FX. Read why serialization is such a priority at the streamer, across comedy and drama, and learn the key word that defines an ideal show for FX, still under the charismatic and commanding leadership of John Landgraf.
DISNEY+
For a long time, all I’d hear about Disney+ is that it was not particularly open to pitches for original series, a.k.a. shows that weren’t driven by one of its near-infinite stores of IP. But as the Steve Buscemi-voiced Randall says to Billy Crystal’s Mike Wazowski in Pixar’s Monsters, Inc., “Do you hear that? It’s the winds of change.” Read what I learned about the new appetite for originals inside the Mouse House.
NETFLIX
Netflix is still the No. 1 buyer across the entertainment market by volume, reps tell me (duh). That’s great for producers trying to sell a show, but it makes it harder to pinpoint exactly what this goliath big-box store of TV programming really wants. Luckily, I got some great insight from agents who are happily bringing their projects over to the Walmart of streamers, which still loves its gourmet cheeseburgers but also a whole lot more, and who has decision-making power there. (Since we published this Netflix guide last Monday, UCAN scripted series head Peter Friedlander has announced his exit, with the well-respected Jinny Howe — who’s credited with coining the phrase “gourmet cheeseburger” — stepping up in his place.)