Original Desmond

It's a different world nowadays

Why don't networks put online properly (no dodgey leaks) every pilot they are considering for the next season. Let the public vote of their favourite pilots in different categories and give sweepstakes prizes of things like VIP set visits to the shows which get picked up, everyone who votes is eligible for the sweepstakes

Better than one or two overpaid network execs making the decisions, judging by the number of new shows which end up getting cancelled, they aren't doing a very good job

RocShemp

Isn't that basically the Amazon Studios approach? Though they seem to take it a step further and have people vote on the premise of proposed pilots to decide which get greenlit. Then based on how well the pilots do, they go into production with the actual series.

hanshotfirst1138

Isn't that sort of how it's done, except they're shown to specific test audiences? The problem is that there also many shows which have pilots which are frankly not indicative of the quality to come, and too many shows which take time finding their feet. I understand the reluctance on the part of viewers to stick with a show in the hopes that it'll get better down the line, don't get me wrong, but it has the effect of many shows getting the axe when they're finally improving.

For a moment I thought this was The Player and you were going to pitch a pilot to us .

writer106

I was thinking the same thing about the test audiences. I don't know if it is still done, but Disney used to pick out test audience members at their theme parks to screen Disney channel and ABC pilots. Sometimes on IMDB, you can find pilot reviews from test audience members.

PhantomStranger

The belief is that you only get one shot at making a first impression on your audience. Many pilots are very rough and occasionally entire roles are re-cast.

Alan Smithee

When I was in Las Vegas a few weeks ago, there was a deal from CBS where you could watch a pilot and rate it. You got a knob and turned it one way for liking it and the other way for disliking it. Just to show my dislike for laugh tracks, I turned it all the way to the 'dislike' position whenever the laugh track came on, then edged it closer to 'like' when it faded out. The show itself was pretty terrible also, and they said it's already been scheduled to air soon. Of course they didn't take any input as to why I haven't actually watched any network TV for 16 years and counting either.

RocShemp

I don't understand why studios seem to find it almost impossible to ditch the laugh track. I know it's a crutch but it's not a very effective crutch.

digidoh

I'm surprised that there are/have been so many sitcoms without laugh tracks/live audience (and sweetening).

I remember an Alfred E. Neuman quote from MAD Magazine, which I didn't get at the time: "Many a TV pilot is a kamikaze."

hanshotfirst1138

Which makes logical sense from a commercial point of view, but is unfortunate because so few pilots are the best episode of anything, and if that's all you judge upon, it doesn't give shows much of a chance.

hanshotfirst1138

There has been some good stuff in the last 16 years. I would say quite a bit, actually.

crazyronin

No, no, no. You have to sell me this idea in one sentence. Otherwise I can't be bothered. I'm very busy. Thanks for stopping by. Ms Jones, send in my next appointment.



Are you still here?

Alan Smithee

None of which has been watchable the way it's been presented over the air. Only shows I've seen from 1998 onward have been on disc, Netflix or sometimes syndicated reruns where I "only" have to deal with commercials but can at least actually see the whole picture. And I thought laugh tracks were on the way out, most of the recent shows I've seen didn't have them, and the ones that did were too dumb to bother with anyways.

Jay G.

A few years ago I participated in a test screening of a pilot where I turned my cable box to a specific channel at a specific time, then did an online survey afterwards. So the networks are looking at different ways of getting test audiences.

Regarding "laugh-tracks", I make a distinction between pre-recorded laughter, aka a "laugh track" and shows that film in front of a live audience. Done well, a sitcom in front of a live audience can be very entertaining, and the laughter can enhance the experience. A "laugh track" however almost always sounds fake and distracting.


Perhaps recognizing that a pilot isn't always to best way to preview a series, networks are more often going "straight to series" with a TV show, i.e. picking up a season or half-season of a show without first ordering and previewing a pilot.
http://www.vulture.com/2013/11/tv-pi...d-species.html
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...rAEajt7EL9eOWA

Jay G.

Syndicated reruns can be a bad way to watch a show for the first time, since usually they edit it down a bit to make room for more commercials.

johnnysd

some shows would die in your thought:

Breaking Bad would have been toast
Seinfeld chronicles would have been nothing not a show about it

Ash Ketchum

Given all the sophisticated marketing techniques involving social media that have been developed over the last few years, there's gotta be a better way to test a concept or pilot than sitting a bunch of random disinterested people who are on vacation in a room and giving them dials to turn. I've attended test screenings in the past and whatever I said or however I reacted was severely compromised by the circumstances. In one case I gave a solid thumbs-down to a show that CBS was test-screening to determine whether to acquire or not for U.S. broadcast and then when another station licensed it a few years later (after CBS had turned it down), I watched it religiously. That show? "Benny Hill"!

I would imagine that the networks could recruit people based on their on-line profiles or web presence that matched their desired viewership and are interested in certain kinds of shows and then use them to test their new pilots. It shouldn't be too hard to find people who are genuinely interested and whose tastes can be relied on for certain genres of TV.

Mikael79

Agreed. And are there even any current shows that actually use a laugh track? I thought all current shows with laughter are via a live studio audience.

PhantomStranger

A lot of networks don't really pay attention to test audiences. The strange environment those people are under produces a lot of wacky results. When a network passes on a pilot due to a test audience, they never believed in the project or the talent behind it in the first place.

Jay G.

Apparently some Nickelodeon sitcoms use a laugh track.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laugh_t...s_shows:_2000s

How I Met Your Mother did not have a live audience, as the episodes were often shot over the course of multiple days. However, they claimed that the laugh track was recorded from an audience watching the finished episode.
http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune....met_your_.html

Alan Smithee

So why do they bother doing test screenings in the first place??? (Reminds me that I need to watch "The Barefoot Executive" again...)

PhantomStranger

They have to justify their decision-making somehow. It's easier for them to point to a bad audience test when you demand changes to the producers.