Your Program Pitch

Can you tell the essence of your idea in two or three sentences? If you can't, you may not have as good an idea as you thought. You know your idea better than anyone. How do you expect the on-screen guide to summarize your show if you can't?

Your program pitch should be both familiar and unique -- something like "romeo and juliet (instantly familiar) but in outer space with competing sexy alien races (makes it seem like a unique program). That's a one sentence pitch -- it should interest the programmer, producer or audience member enough to want to hear more.

The best pitch ever for a show came from a Head of Programming, the legendary Brandon Tartikoff, to one of his producers, Michael Mann. Brandon Tartikoff was Head of Programming during NBC's glory years, when the network carried the Cosby Show, Hill St. Blues, LA Law, the A-Team, and many other iconic shows.

The story is that Tartikoff gave Michael Mann a piece of paper with two words -- "MTV cops." Those two words inspired Mann to create "Miami Vice," a show that changed not only the look of police dramas on TV, but also spawned an entire fashion look for that time.

When you read "MTV cops," did you think of "Miami Vice?" Do you see it now? Can you put your program pitch into two words? How about two sentences?

If you can't do this, keep thinking about your idea. Strip it to its essentials until you can. When you can create your pitch, write it down. Memorize it and try it on your friends and family until it sings. Then try it on a programming executive or producer.

Is Your Life a Reality Show?

Reality shows. They've been a staple of television since its inception, when shows like "Queen for a Day," "Candid Camera," and "Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts" showcased 'ordinary' people. However, ever since "Survivor" demonstrated in 2001 that you could create a hit show by putting carefully selected 'ordinary' people in a stressful setting, reality shows have popped up on every network. There is even a reality network.

I received a lot of reality pitches over the years from producers, viewers, and people I met at cocktail parties. The pitch from non-professionals was usually the same: "My job/life is fascinating. I'm sure if you sent cameras to follow me around you'd have a great reality show."

That might be true if you were a cop ("Cops" is still very successful) or a bounty hunter (it's worked out for "Dogg, the Bounty Hunter"). However, the fact is most people's lives are not dramatic and they like it that way. Think your teenagers are tough now? Wait until you put them on television. Be honest -- do you think your job would be easier if cameras recorded your every move? Would you be happier if you got home from work and faced intense dramatic situations every twenty minutes?

If you answered no to the last two questions, please don't try to pitch your life as a reality show. You won't be happy. But say you're still convinced that is your ticket to fame and fortune. Take step two: List the events that take place during that day the might interest an audience. If you can't list at least ten events, your life might not be the stuff of great drama. In an average one hour reality episode, you need at least one dramatic/audience grabbing event each segment -- that's an average of seven to ten each show.

If you've got your ten incidents then start having some fun. Write an outline for a one hour show based on your day. It should be at least two pages long, to make sure that you really have enough incidents to fill up an hour show. Too much work for you? Then you probably don't really want to make your life a reality show. If you don't care enough to write an outline, why should the audience care?

We'll talk about what you can do with your outline in an upcoming post.

Make Your Own Show

When I started in television, everyone dreamed of airing a show on a big network. Unfortunately, making television cost a fortune. Cameras were big and difficult to move, editing required sophisticated and often custom-made equipment. You needed an advertising budget in the millions, not counting the free publicity you got from your network. Because of the high cost you had to get your show on a network in order to have a chance to make your money back.

Today, that's all changed. For a few hundred or at the most a few thousand dollars, you can have access to digital cameras and home editing systems that are as good or better than the ones professionals use. More importantly, You don't need a network. Sites like You Tube exist to provide you with a platform for airing your video. You do not have to convince some network honcho to give your program a chance; you can take it directly to the people, and promote it via the internet.

So if you have a program idea you believe in, don't wait. Make your own show! Buy or rent the equipment, or find a friend who owns it. Write the script. Make the storyboard. Get friends, or family, or people from the local college drama or film program to act in it. Once you have the final product, if you're proud of it, put it up on the internet.

This serves three purposes:

1. It demonstrates your passion for this project. No program idea can succeed unless its creator is passionate about it. If you don't care about the program, why should the audience?

2. You've created a pilot for the show. Some networks require a pilot before they'll consider a program idea. Putting the pilot on You Tube makes it easy for them -- You can send them a link to the site that shows your work, and they can make a determination at their desks.

3. Even if a network passes on the project, the show may catch on. You never know what will resonate with the public until you give them access to it. If your program becomes popular on the web, it will be much easier to sell to a network or even a movie studio.

Don't know how to shoot and edit a television show? Don't worry. There are books and web sites that can give you more information. You can take classes in video production at your local community college. And there are many consultants and production companies that can help you realize your vision if you don't feel confident creating it yourself. Consultants and production companies will expect to get paid, so make sure you have a clear understanding of what you want them to do and what your fee covers.

It's your idea. Why not make your own show?

Ready, Fire, Aim!

Have you ever had a great idea just before falling asleep, and then in the morning tried to remember it? Were you able to reconstruct your thoughts from the night before? If you're like me, you couldn't do it. What seemed like a great inspiration at night looked bland and ordinary in the daylight.

There are two things to remember:

1. Have a pad of paper and a pen with you at all times to write down your inspiration when they occur. First thoughts are the best thoughts.

2. Act on your idea as soon as possible.

That's why the title of this posting is Ready, Fire, Aim! If you wait too long for your idea to ripen on the vine, you risk it going sour. Start outlining immediately. Get down as much as you can -- if it's for a movie or television series, write the treatment. If it's for a book, create a proposal. If your idea is for an invention, start sketching.

Will you make some mistakes? Of course you will. That's how you learn. You can correct them and improve your piece as you go. The greater danger lies in not starting.

So take your idea, whatever it is, and move forward. Ready, Fire, Aim!

The Easiest Job in the World

My mentor, Bob Greenway, always used to joke that the two easiest jobs in television were Executive Producer and Head of Programming. After all, everyone watches television shows, and everyone has an opinion about how to make them better. Of course, they'd rather review the baby at the end of the process, and not its messy birth. It's easy to make suggestions; hard to implement them.

When you're working on your idea, remember you don't have to listen to all the executive producers in your life. Your friends, family, co-workers, and even your hair dresser will all have opinions. If you take all of their suggestions, you will end up with a muddled mess, very far from your original conception. You must protect your idea against this death from a thousand opinions.

Get one or at most two people -- ideally people who know something about the media business -- whose opinion you trust and use only them, as a sounding board. You can take their advice or not, but remember you are responsible for the execution of your idea.

If you get to the point where a network is willing to pay cash for your idea, then you might want to discuss possible changes with them. How you do that will be the subject of a future post.

An Idea is Only as Good as its Execution

Everyone has ideas. Most everyone watches television -- the average American watches over Four Hours of Television Per Day, according to the Nielsen company. That's more than half of most people's total leisure time in a typical day.

Many people who spend a lot of time watching television think they can also create shows. Haven't you ever said, after seeing a bad TV show, "I could do better than that!" But no one sets out to make a bad show (even though most television shows fail to find an audience.) Why does it happen?

It happens because an idea is only as good as its execution. It's not enough to think of a good program idea in a simple one or two sentence pitch. The devil is in the details. For example, if your idea is to create a situation comedy about an alien living in the suburbs, do you want to make "Third Rock from the Sun," "Mork and Mindy," or "My Favorite Martian?" They have the same basic premise, but each show handled it differently. This story about two sitcoms from the 1980s illustrates the point.

NBC broke through as the #1 network in the 80s after putting the Cosby Show on Thursday nights. It was a massive hit, and of course the other networks tried to copy it. CBS rushed a sitcom into production starring Flip Wilson and Gladys Knight. Flip Wilson was arguably a bigger television star than Bill Cosby. While Cosby's first sitcom after I Spy had only modest success, Flip Wilson's variety show was one of the top shows on television during its run. Yet, while I'm sure you've heard of the Cosby show, most of you probably don't know about Flip Wilson's show. That's because it was off television after a few episodes. Why?

Poor execution of the concept. The writing just wasn't funny -- the characters didn't work. And although Flip was a big success hosting a variety show, he wasn't as interesting playing a working class father.

So the lesson to be learned from this is flesh out your idea. Once you figure out your one or two sentence concept, take time to flesh it out. Think about the characters. Write out some scenarios. After all, if you're not willing to spend time developing your idea, why should the audience want to spend time watching it?

What's the first thing you should do with a new idea?

Write it Down!

The first thing you should do with any idea is write it down. Immediately. Keep a notebook handy if you have to, but get it on paper as soon as possible.

There are several reasons for this:

1. Your first impulse will almost always be your best impulse. Write down the idea exactly as you envisioned it. Be as detailed and specific as possible. If you don't write it down, it's likely that your second or third version will lack the excitement and passion of your first inspiration.

2. You may forget it. Lots of things happen during a typical day that can drive good program ideas out of your head. If you don't write it down immediately, you will find yourself spending lots of time over the next few days trying to recreate the circumstances that led up to your inspiration.

3. Once you write it down, you have some legal protection under current intellectual property law.

Keep your idea to one page -- if you have to go a couple of lines on to page two, that's OK, but in general, one page is better. There will be time later to flesh out the details. It's crucial to preserve the creative impulse, vision and image that excited you in the first place. For example:

Say you had the idea for a show about a varied group of castaways marooned on an island. It could be "Lost," or it could be "Gilligan's Island." Either way, keep it to one page. In the first paragraph, write the basic premise. In the second paragraph, flesh out the characters. In the third and fourth paragraph, explain why people would want to watch this show. Then put it aside for a couple of days. Look at it again. If you still think it's a viable idea, then it's time to go the next step, which will be in further posts.

How Can I Get My Idea on TV?

That was the question I heard more than any other in my twenty-five plus years in television programming. I have a great idea for TV -- how can I get it on. Of course these days, it's not just TV -- ideas can be books, movies, internet programs, You Tube videos, mobile phone applications, or some combination of all of the above.

I will dedicate this blog to helping you answer those questions, guide you through your own use of media in the digital world, and generally help you develop those great ideas into actual programs. I plan to post regularly, so keep coming back.