Panel Transcript: How to Pitch a TV Show
Listen in on the mediabistro panel on pitching a TV show, which featured BBC reporter Manoush Zomorodi, Alan Cross, who writes for SNL’s “Weekend Update,” Reid Harrison, a writer/producer for “The Simpsons”, Matt Roshkow, a TV and feature film writer and Laurie Scheer, the former vice president of programming for WE, the Women’s Entertainment Network.
Manoush Zomorodi: Now Matt when you pitch a television program idea, what do you include in your, do you need to have a really fleshed out idea or can it just be a concept? Or how in depth do you need to be in your pitch?
Matt Roshkow: My experience in television has mostly been-they used to call it the MOW, which was the made for TV movie. The few times that I’ve sold pilots, I don’t know, my agents just said, don’t be too specific, don’t give them too much to find fault with. I think what you essentially want to do is apply the same logic I do when I’m pitching a feature which is, to get them excited about it in the abstract. To get them to latch on to the concept. And then to say a few sort of carefully specific things about who, to give them an indication of who might the cast might be. I mean, to give you an example, we had just done Campus Confidential for ABC Family so they wanted to hear a TV pitch. So we just came in like we had like five days to prepare something and Campus Confidential was this sort of vaguely satiric look at a high school newspaper that goes tabloid. And exposes the popular kids in school. So we, you know, we just came up with something off the cuff about a satiric high school world that’s set in Washington D.C. And just sort of pitched, we pitched the title which was called Hail to Stacey about the daughter of the president who becomes the president of school and a few other sort of basic plots and elements and sort of, if they like it they usually run with it. And if they don’t, get out quick.
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