Speaker 1: Welcome to Strictly Business, Variety's podcast featuring conversations with industry
Speaker 1: leaders about the business of entertainment. I'm Cynthia Littleton, Managing
Speaker 1: editor of Television for Variety, and today my guest in
Speaker 1: New York as Assembly Entertainment head, Christina Wayne. Wayne has
Speaker 1: been an independent producer for nearly a decade. She first
Speaker 1: made her mark during her years as a development executive
Speaker 1: at a MC. There, she championed two shows that changed
Speaker 1: the face of television, Madmen and Breaking Bath. In our conversation,
Speaker 1: Wayne goes deep into the nitty gritty of deal making
Speaker 1: in the current landscape. She's candid about how hard it's
Speaker 1: become for producers to make a good living despite the
Speaker 1: boom times in TV, and she also talks about how
Speaker 1: her adventures inspired the launch of her television school dot
Speaker 1: com subscription venture. Christina Wayne, CEO of Assembly Entertainment, Welcome
Speaker 1: to Strictly Business. Thanks so much for having me, Thanks
Speaker 1: for coming buy on one of the first crisp fall
Speaker 1: days here in New York City. It's a beautiful day.
Speaker 1: It's a good day to talk about the television business. Um, Christina,
Speaker 1: you have been You've had a range of experience from
Speaker 1: being on the programming side and the buying side at
Speaker 1: a MC where you helped bring to life a couple
Speaker 1: of little shows called Madman and Breaking Dad, and more
Speaker 1: recently the last bunch of years, you have been an
Speaker 1: independent producer, putting together shows and using you know, interesting
Speaker 1: different financial models to make your programming work. And right
Speaker 1: now Assembly Entertainment you have a pod deal with I
Speaker 1: t V America, so you're part of that global village
Speaker 1: of programming that's coming and being financed and coming from
Speaker 1: all sides. UM, let's talk about the job of a
Speaker 1: producer and how much your role as a packager and
Speaker 1: developer has changed in just a few years as we've
Speaker 1: seen the explosion of demand for original content. Well, definitely changed.
Speaker 1: I performed my company Assembly Entertainment about five years ago,
Speaker 1: a little over five years ago, and when I first
Speaker 1: started the first two years, my job was similar to
Speaker 1: the development process that I had done when I was
Speaker 1: UM doing scripted at AMC or even when I was
Speaker 1: at an international studio Cineflix. UM when I was doing
Speaker 1: scripted there, you start with an idea, you go to writers,
Speaker 1: you develop, you package the show together, but really all
Speaker 1: you needed at that time was a great idea with
Speaker 1: a really good writer, a great script, and you went
Speaker 1: to the market and I saw that there were new
Speaker 1: buyers back five years ago coming not as much as
Speaker 1: there are now. The platforms did not exist. There was
Speaker 1: no Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, but a lot of the basic
Speaker 1: cable channels, and even places like HBO started pushing for
Speaker 1: scripted programming at their sister UM channel, Cinemax things like that.
Speaker 1: People started audening out their channels in terms of growing
Speaker 1: their scripted So all of a sudden, a bunch of
Speaker 1: new buyers came to the market and we would take
Speaker 1: stuff out, and over the first two years of having
Speaker 1: my company, we sold pretty much everything we took to
Speaker 1: the market. There were about i'd say thirteen fourteen shows
Speaker 1: that we took out, and they all went into development.
Speaker 1: Not all of them got made, but um one or
Speaker 1: two of them got made, which is kind of the ratio.
Speaker 1: You have one out of ten usually is your ratio
Speaker 1: of what you're hoping for the last two years of
Speaker 1: being a producer. Now, with all the platforms, there is
Speaker 1: such a huge demand for content that one would assume
Speaker 1: that being a producer would make my life much easier
Speaker 1: it's actually made it more difficult. What has happened is
Speaker 1: that TV is such an incredible medium now, it is
Speaker 1: so high level the programming that's being made. You have
Speaker 1: every a list showrunner, actor, director coming with their passion project.
Speaker 1: I often find myself waiting to take out a show
Speaker 1: to the buyers and you have Germo del Toro sitting
Speaker 1: in the waiting room, you have George Clooney, you have
Speaker 1: every single top level person who's you know, Germo had
Speaker 1: just won an Academy Award, and you're sitting there going, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: my little great show, Um, what do we have? So
Speaker 1: it definitely has become more difficult. And I have noticed
Speaker 1: that unless you package your show to the nth degree,
Speaker 1: it does not sell. You're talking about soup to nuts
Speaker 1: with writers, showrunner, star director, the whole. You don't necessarily
Speaker 1: need a line producer because they can always hire that,
Speaker 1: because that's not going to be You need somebody competent,
Speaker 1: but they're not going to look at that as the
Speaker 1: sort of bells and whistles of must make TV. And
Speaker 1: so right now the game is straight to series orders
Speaker 1: with a list talent. And you know you see that
Speaker 1: with Reese Witherspoon's company. You see that with all of
Speaker 1: these packages now that are going out, um, and so
Speaker 1: I I have now moved from being focused solely on
Speaker 1: development to also being a packager, which really was never
Speaker 1: that was always an agent's job. And so it has
Speaker 1: really sort of taken over what I do. And UM,
Speaker 1: I do it. And thankfully I've been in the business
Speaker 1: long enough that it's not impossible, but it certainly is
Speaker 1: not what I came to the business to do. So
Speaker 1: it's quite different than when I started. Does it affect
Speaker 1: um that I would imagine that the need to have
Speaker 1: all those elements assembled at the at the very get go,
Speaker 1: would you say? Even sometimes before a script is written,
Speaker 1: usually we package stuff that is written. It's very hard
Speaker 1: to bring talent to a piece of material that's just
Speaker 1: a pitch. So if we're going out with a pitch,
Speaker 1: we have to have a showrunner level writer be bringing
Speaker 1: it out and so who commissions that script? Is that
Speaker 1: pressure on you to pay for that initial initial script
Speaker 1: before you even set it up. Sometimes I can give
Speaker 1: be the example of our show that we have at
Speaker 1: ABC right now called Mercury thirteen. So Jessica Chastain brought
Speaker 1: me an idea. That was a passion project for her,
Speaker 1: and it's based on a true story, a story I
Speaker 1: did not know. It's about thirteen female pilots from the
Speaker 1: early nineteen sixties that were recruited by a program that
Speaker 1: was set up UM by NASA, and it was to
Speaker 1: train the women to be the first female astronauts to
Speaker 1: go into space. So it was a story I didn't know,
Speaker 1: a story about. UM, these very strong women and the
Speaker 1: obstacles they faced in the early sixties in that world.
Speaker 1: So we went out and looked at a bunch of
Speaker 1: different writers. We wound up UM. I had worked with
Speaker 1: Todd coomber Nikki, who is the screenwriter who wrote Sully.
Speaker 1: He he and I had sold a show to T
Speaker 1: and T a few years before that. UM, you know,
Speaker 1: he was just coming off of Sully. He was UH
Speaker 1: an incredibly hot writer at the time, and we knew
Speaker 1: that if we wanted to go to the market, we
Speaker 1: needed to write the script. So I t be under
Speaker 1: my deal. UM had Todd write the script and they
Speaker 1: paid for the script, and then we took that to
Speaker 1: the market as a package with the script already written. UM.
Speaker 1: Jessica and I and Todd went all over to all
Speaker 1: the buyers and took it around town and Channing DUNGEI
Speaker 1: bought it at ABC. So that really shows the level
Speaker 1: in which you need right now, which is highly competitive.
Speaker 1: But you had Jessica Chastain, which is incredible and she's
Speaker 1: a phenomenal producer. Do you think, UM, do you think
Speaker 1: that the I know it's probably hard to answer, but
Speaker 1: do you think that the one intent you talked about,
Speaker 1: the one intent ratio of development to actually getting things made?
Speaker 1: Do you is your sense that that's going to go
Speaker 1: up even even with the challenge of getting things placed.
Speaker 1: It still feels to me like the ratio that's going
Speaker 1: on right now. There is a bit of with new
Speaker 1: platforms coming to the table um. When Suzanne Daniels took
Speaker 1: over at YouTube Premium, Uh, she reached out to me
Speaker 1: and because when a when a new platform comes to
Speaker 1: the market, a lot of people who are experienced in
Speaker 1: the business don't necessarily a no. These new platforms have
Speaker 1: opened because it takes a little while to get the
Speaker 1: buzz out. There's now you know, Facebook, there's a bunch
Speaker 1: of new places um, and they want to have experienced
Speaker 1: people come to them with shows it's not necessarily at
Speaker 1: the forefront of your mind when you're making your list
Speaker 1: of places if someplace has literally just started. So this
Speaker 1: was two years ago when Suzanne reached out to me
Speaker 1: and UM we did a deal in which I would
Speaker 1: bring her three projects and she would green light one
Speaker 1: to pilot and under a put pilot deal. So that
Speaker 1: UM made it a little bit different and a little
Speaker 1: bit um more of a path to production. So I
Speaker 1: saw that as a positive in terms of that these
Speaker 1: places need quality content and they're not necessarily on their
Speaker 1: first swings going to take major risks with people that
Speaker 1: they don't trust. So but you know, not every place
Speaker 1: is banging down your door to do that, So they
Speaker 1: are looking at the tried and true. That's why you
Speaker 1: know people like Ryan Murphy and Shawn to Rhymes get
Speaker 1: these massive deals because Netflix just wants to know their
Speaker 1: pipeline is going to be filled with They know what
Speaker 1: they're getting from those people, and they know people. You know,
Speaker 1: there's nobody more valuable than somebody like a like an
Speaker 1: uber shore runner that can get a ship. You know,
Speaker 1: they know, for better for worse, they can get that
Speaker 1: show on its feet exactly. UM and the kind of
Speaker 1: deal that you talked about, that you sketched out with
Speaker 1: that you set out with Suzanne. Those kinds of deals
Speaker 1: are probably few and far between at a traditional linear
Speaker 1: network at this moment. Probably, I guess it depends on
Speaker 1: the level of producers show runner. It's the one time
Speaker 1: it's happened to me. I'm very thankful for it. That's
Speaker 1: our new show that we're now going into production on
Speaker 1: right now for YouTube Premium with USA reback. It's called
Speaker 1: It's a Man's World, and we'll be shooting this December.
Speaker 1: So you know, to me, that's when somebody like that,
Speaker 1: you've known for a long time, you've had a relationship,
Speaker 1: they understand the work that you do, understands and believes
Speaker 1: that you can deliver a quality product. That's sort of
Speaker 1: the best place to be as a producer. And this
Speaker 1: you said you set this deal about two years ago.
Speaker 1: Did it take that long to find the right piece
Speaker 1: of material? We under the deal had to bring them
Speaker 1: three projects. So over the past two years we brought
Speaker 1: them three shows. One was a pitch, One was a
Speaker 1: script that was already written, a spec script that I
Speaker 1: had optioned a while before. One was actually it's a
Speaker 1: Man's World was actually a script we had previously sold
Speaker 1: to Bravo as a one hour and it was in
Speaker 1: turn around. So they did deals for all three of
Speaker 1: those and then gave notes and the one that was
Speaker 1: a pitch, the writers had to write the script. The
Speaker 1: other two we had to turn It's a Man's World
Speaker 1: from an hour into a half hour, and then UM,
Speaker 1: the other one they had the writer do some extensive
Speaker 1: rewrite sonics that was an hour as well, and so
Speaker 1: it took about a year and a half and so
Speaker 1: about six months ago they made the decision to pick
Speaker 1: the one that we wanted. Unfortunately, one of the writers
Speaker 1: of one of those projects passed away at that time,
Speaker 1: so it limited UM, which is very sad. He was
Speaker 1: a very lovely man who was the UM, Charlie Bull,
Speaker 1: and so it was sort of this very surprising tragic thing.
Speaker 1: So that limited the decision to two projects rather than one,
Speaker 1: I mean, rather than three. Right during that time, UM,
Speaker 1: when you have when you know, when you're juggling a
Speaker 1: pitch and you're juggling you know, an outline, and then
Speaker 1: you have something you know that with Teresa rebeca very
Speaker 1: well known, a brand named writer and playwright, How is
Speaker 1: it for your company as on a financial basis? Is
Speaker 1: it is it? Um? Is it a struggle to keep
Speaker 1: those that many things juggling in the air for a
Speaker 1: for an extended period? You know, we're what you just
Speaker 1: described as well outside of the traditional chaos of of
Speaker 1: a traditional broadcast pilot season. Well, the nice thing about
Speaker 1: platform and cable buyers is that they don't adhere to
Speaker 1: a calendar, right, so you can really start and stop
Speaker 1: any time of the year. Um. What I have found
Speaker 1: though with our show at ABC, it's not really adhering
Speaker 1: to any calendar. Also, maybe it's because of the Disney
Speaker 1: Fox merger. There seems to be a lot of um
Speaker 1: waiting around to see what's going to happen when that closes.
Speaker 1: There's a lot going on there. Yeah, So um, I
Speaker 1: actually like the idea of not having a schedule. I
Speaker 1: think it just allows the material to get to the
Speaker 1: place where it needs to be and then you move forward,
Speaker 1: which gives you the time to really nurture a project,
Speaker 1: which I like. Is there a downside? Though? We've we've
Speaker 1: often heard from writers and creatives that that kind of
Speaker 1: the lack of a schedule can be challenging because they
Speaker 1: don't know if something is going to get going. They
Speaker 1: don't know. Sometimes their ability to get other work in
Speaker 1: the in the inter room can be can be constricted.
Speaker 1: Although I know those those rules are changing a little bit.
Speaker 1: Um Well, if you look at the timeline of what
Speaker 1: happened with I'm Dying up here, that was a very
Speaker 1: long time. That was a Showtime series that produced for
Speaker 1: two seasons, correct, and so we went in and pitched that.
Speaker 1: I can't even remember what year it was, it must
Speaker 1: have been that we went around and watched that and
Speaker 1: Showtime bought it as a pitch. It was then a
Speaker 1: year process of Dave Flabatt, the showrunner, writing the pilot script.
Speaker 1: We probably had a year after the pilot's script was
Speaker 1: turned in while we waited around for Showtime to make
Speaker 1: a decision. I think it was not for lack of
Speaker 1: Showtime's enthusiasm. I think it was literally them looking at
Speaker 1: their shows and seeing when they had an opening in
Speaker 1: their schedule for a new show. There were a couple
Speaker 1: shows that were ending that they were waiting for their
Speaker 1: seasons to be done, and they were really looking at
Speaker 1: other material that was coming in at the same time.
Speaker 1: So that was quite a long time for the cable schedule.
Speaker 1: Usually things happen, they usually tell you within six months
Speaker 1: of a script being turned in, but this that was
Speaker 1: a really long time. UM. Talking back to it's a
Speaker 1: man's world, can you talk about I know you can't
Speaker 1: talk dollars and cents, but can you talk about the
Speaker 1: economics of doing a YouTube pilot? Is it comparable to
Speaker 1: a basic cable or premium cable type of a deal?
Speaker 1: It is. It's a half hours and it's the first
Speaker 1: half hour I've ever made. I'm used to being in
Speaker 1: the world of hours, which you know, have grown. The budgets,
Speaker 1: I would say, from when we first did the pilot
Speaker 1: for mad Men UM, which was in a little bit
Speaker 1: over three million dollars. You're looking now at pilots that
Speaker 1: are being made, you know, in the hour round eight
Speaker 1: nine million dollars for a pilot. So they're very expensive
Speaker 1: right now, not all of them are. Some of them
Speaker 1: are more like five million. But they have gone up
Speaker 1: in the half hour space. I think YouTube premium is
Speaker 1: squarely in the half hour budget range. They actually, during
Speaker 1: the term of our deal raised the level. When we
Speaker 1: first did the deal, they went up slightly and said,
Speaker 1: you know, we see how competitive the marketplace is now
Speaker 1: to cast to get quality directors. And they've actually brought
Speaker 1: up the budget where this week discussing exactly what our
Speaker 1: budget and schedule are, so um, we should know by
Speaker 1: nets week and be able to get going because of that,
Speaker 1: because the realities are. It's this is the other challenge.
Speaker 1: With so much programming being made, no one is available.
Speaker 1: So you look at the landscape creative talent wise correct,
Speaker 1: so you're looking at who's out there. There's a ton
Speaker 1: of great directors out there working right now, and thankfully
Speaker 1: there are phenomenal female directors now being given opportunities that weren't.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of diverse talent out there, but they
Speaker 1: are busy. It is so hard right now to say, okay,
Speaker 1: I have a pilot shooting in three months from now
Speaker 1: at least when we got green light back in August,
Speaker 1: and find somebody that can actually do it for the
Speaker 1: time you're looking at. So you can't say, oh, I
Speaker 1: want you to do this for five dollars. You have
Speaker 1: to entice people to be able to fit it in
Speaker 1: their schedule because they have so many options right and
Speaker 1: in this process, I would imagine there's a lot of
Speaker 1: pleading with talent agents to to to arrange people's schedules.
Speaker 1: Would you say the agencies have become in in arranging
Speaker 1: that kind of that kind of base level staffing of
Speaker 1: a show that they would you say that they've become
Speaker 1: more important for the sought after talent beyond the beyond
Speaker 1: the stars, I'm talking about even just the basics of
Speaker 1: a crew, or basically when you are green light to production,
Speaker 1: pretty much all of the agencies and management companies are
Speaker 1: there and helpful and will really vet your lists of
Speaker 1: who's available, who's not. And I've seen that there for
Speaker 1: the most part, very helpful. It's really more when you're
Speaker 1: trying to package something that you're taking to the market
Speaker 1: that because there's so much work, nobody's really interested anymore
Speaker 1: in putting their talent or their director with a project
Speaker 1: that hasn't sold yet. So I have found that is
Speaker 1: if you go to the agencies for that, it's much
Speaker 1: more difficult. They're happy to have you meet with the
Speaker 1: young playwright that wants to get into TV, who really
Speaker 1: could be the most talented up and coming writer. It
Speaker 1: could be the next Bo williman Um who I met
Speaker 1: when he was still a Juilliard and I gave him
Speaker 1: his first writing job when I was at AMC. He
Speaker 1: came in with a pitch um and started his TV career. UM.
Speaker 1: So he didn't go to pilot. It didn't. It was
Speaker 1: actually sort of a a precursor to Underground. It was
Speaker 1: set on a plant, southern plantation, and it dealt with
Speaker 1: the lives of the people that lived on the plantation.
Speaker 1: And um, at that particular moment in time, I don't
Speaker 1: think it was what AMC was doing right. Um. But
Speaker 1: you know, I'm always open and eager to meet with
Speaker 1: young talent, with new directors and and break people because
Speaker 1: you know, I'm just looking for people that have great
Speaker 1: voices and are saying something unique and different that hasn't
Speaker 1: been said before. Um. But in terms of attaching people
Speaker 1: to things, I find the agencies are less willing to
Speaker 1: do that when they know that there's so much work
Speaker 1: out there, right, you don't want to lock somebody up
Speaker 1: for for too long. UM. Again, working with YouTube, with
Speaker 1: you know, a very newish platform, even in the world
Speaker 1: of a lot of new platforms, does it concern you
Speaker 1: or the or the folks that you're working with? It
Speaker 1: I TV America that you know, do you have to
Speaker 1: have a discussion about what is the potential back end
Speaker 1: here before you commit to something like that. All of
Speaker 1: these deals have really shifted. UM. I have found as
Speaker 1: a producer you never see back end, regardless it's a myth.
Speaker 1: I think it's a myth. UM. I think even when
Speaker 1: a show is profitable for a producer. I will not
Speaker 1: name the show, but there is a very successful show,
Speaker 1: UM that I knew intimately the inner workings of, and
Speaker 1: I knew it was profitable, and the producer and the
Speaker 1: show runner at the end of however many seasons the
Speaker 1: show had run, we're telling me that the studio was
Speaker 1: telling them that the show was still in the red
Speaker 1: and if you just looked at the show, you would go,
Speaker 1: there's no way that that's possible. And they actually had
Speaker 1: to sue the studio for their back end. So it
Speaker 1: is incredibly difficult to get back end on a show.
Speaker 1: So a lot of these new platforms like Netflix, they
Speaker 1: buy you out and they give you your deal upfront.
Speaker 1: So whether your show is going to be Game of
Speaker 1: Thrones or whether it's something that is you know, a
Speaker 1: flash in the pan and going away after the first season,
Speaker 1: they estimate what they think the potential could be and
Speaker 1: they give that to your up front. And as a producer,
Speaker 1: I think just in terms of business, it's probably makes
Speaker 1: more sense to do a model like that, because even
Speaker 1: when you have one of the most successful shows on TV,
Speaker 1: you're still going to have to fight for that back
Speaker 1: end and probably won't get the reality of what it's
Speaker 1: really worth. Wow, And again, how do you I'm curious
Speaker 1: how how does a YouTube or Netflix estimate what that
Speaker 1: back end like, I have no idea. You would have
Speaker 1: to ask that super secret mathematical formulas. I just this
Speaker 1: is all fascinating because it is all changing so much,
Speaker 1: it is, and to try and keep up with it.
Speaker 1: You know, when you have I have um an exclusive
Speaker 1: overhead deal at I TV Studios America, so my deals
Speaker 1: are pre negotiated. It doesn't matter what platform or channel
Speaker 1: I sell to. My deal is the same because it's
Speaker 1: with I t V for all of these shows. So
Speaker 1: it's really about I t V than negotiating the deal
Speaker 1: with that particular buyer. It doesn't really affect me because
Speaker 1: it's already sentenced one what I get interesting and so
Speaker 1: that's obviously that is one of the advantages of aligning
Speaker 1: with an I t V something, a company with some
Speaker 1: real heft and real um, you know, clout in the
Speaker 1: marketplace and a lot of resources that they can bring
Speaker 1: to bear. And and we've all been seeing a lot
Speaker 1: more kind of you know, cross border productions, seeing a
Speaker 1: lot of British and US co productions. I know you've done,
Speaker 1: You've done several over the years. It would seem like
Speaker 1: that that is a that that would be a big
Speaker 1: benefit to producer, to a producer, to have somebody like
Speaker 1: that vacue. But do you ever does that the fact
Speaker 1: that your deal is already pre negotiated, is that ever
Speaker 1: an issue in terms of setting something up. It hasn't
Speaker 1: been an issue in terms of actually doing the deal. Um,
Speaker 1: when we sell something, what is becoming more and more
Speaker 1: apparent is that every buyer wants to own their content. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So originally when we sold I'm Dying up Here, I
Speaker 1: was running Cineflix Studios, and it became very clear that
Speaker 1: Showtime wanted to own the show, and so Showtime in
Speaker 1: house studio took over the show, and so it gave
Speaker 1: it a lot more likelihood of going to production because
Speaker 1: they owned it. And if you look at Netflix, they
Speaker 1: want to own their shows. Amazon wants to own their shows,
Speaker 1: AMC Stars they all want to own their shows. So
Speaker 1: it narrows. There's lots of buyers, but it narrows the
Speaker 1: buyers that are willing to work with an independent studio
Speaker 1: or the studio for that matter, Apple does, uh, YouTube
Speaker 1: does um? I think Facebook does. So it there really
Speaker 1: aren't the fifteen buyers that you say that are out
Speaker 1: there for studios. There are for producers. But if I
Speaker 1: didn't have a deal, I'm just an unemployed producer. So
Speaker 1: as a producer in a in a world where back
Speaker 1: end is increasingly becoming a myth, you you survive. Your
Speaker 1: livelihood comes from the upfront fees. Yes, so obviously the
Speaker 1: motivation to have things both in development and obviously you know,
Speaker 1: trying to get on the air. Yeah. Development, Um still
Speaker 1: means I'm just an unemployed producer because I don't make
Speaker 1: any money in development. The writer does. So Really the
Speaker 1: way that I make money is shows in production. I
Speaker 1: I have a deal, so I make a salary out
Speaker 1: of that. And without a deal, I think it's very hard.
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of young people who are
Speaker 1: coming to the business right now saying, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: there's so many buyers. I'm going to go out and
Speaker 1: you know, sell five shows and make a living doing this.
Speaker 1: But your show might not get greenland for a couple
Speaker 1: of years. Like I said, a one to tend ratio,
Speaker 1: the majority of them are not going to move forward,
Speaker 1: So you could spend years upon years not receiving a
Speaker 1: dime for your a lot of work that you have
Speaker 1: to put in. So that's why you see most producers
Speaker 1: who have experience and have made multiple shows. It's a
Speaker 1: man's world. I think is my ninth TV series that
Speaker 1: I've made UM over a period since two thousand five,
Speaker 1: I've pretty much been in production on a show since
Speaker 1: two thousand five every year. So when you look at
Speaker 1: people that are sort of at my level, UM, the
Speaker 1: way that they can sustain is by having a deal.
Speaker 1: It's a high wire act, I would imagine. You know
Speaker 1: it is because as the buyer's shrink in terms of
Speaker 1: the buyers that want to work with studios, you have
Speaker 1: to weigh your options. So you really have to say
Speaker 1: how many shows can I sell under this del versus
Speaker 1: how many shows can I sell without a studio. But
Speaker 1: you have to also have an income, so and you know,
Speaker 1: it would be incredibly expensive to pay writers to write scripts.
Speaker 1: It's incredibly expensive to whenever we take a show to
Speaker 1: the market, we're flying writers sometimes from New York or
Speaker 1: the UK, putting them up for a week in l A.
Speaker 1: Those costs are incredibly prohibitive if you're an independent producer,
Speaker 1: so you do need the backing of a bigger company, right,
Speaker 1: either that or a trust fund. If you could put
Speaker 1: your if you could put your mind back to your
Speaker 1: days as a buyer. As on the programming side, how
Speaker 1: do you think and granted it's a much different world,
Speaker 1: but how do you think the buyer Christina Wayne would
Speaker 1: have responded to these shifts in you know, deeply packaged
Speaker 1: projects coming to the market, the push for straight to
Speaker 1: series orders. Do you think that on the buying side
Speaker 1: that this is a good thing for the quality? I
Speaker 1: think that there's a ton of programming right now that's
Speaker 1: being made that is just filler. I think it is
Speaker 1: pretty mediocre. And the there are the amazingly beautiful of
Speaker 1: Dune shows. I'm a huge fan of The Crown and
Speaker 1: things like that, you know, Handmaid's Tale. These are shows
Speaker 1: that are exquisite and deserve all the kudos that they get. UM.
Speaker 1: The thing that I miss from back in the days
Speaker 1: of when I was at AMC is that because there
Speaker 1: were so few programs being made, the ones that rose
Speaker 1: to the top we're quite good. There wasn't a lot
Speaker 1: of just mediocre programming being made because people weren't willing
Speaker 1: to spend the money on just mass content. And so
Speaker 1: now I just see that there's an onslaught of just
Speaker 1: very forgettable programming, and I, UM, I worry about that
Speaker 1: moving forward, having just had an experience on a very
Speaker 1: high quality show at a top level network. We're talking
Speaker 1: about I'm dying up here where because there's so there's
Speaker 1: so much choice out there that your show isn't getting
Speaker 1: the attention from people like you and the critics that
Speaker 1: when you know, we launched Even Copper, which was for
Speaker 1: BBC America. When I was executive producing that, UM, the
Speaker 1: landscape was very different, just literally what five years ago,
Speaker 1: six years ago? Yeah, And so we launched that and
Speaker 1: with just the standard marketing dollars, we were able to
Speaker 1: be on lots of different areas in journalism, So it
Speaker 1: wasn't just the TV pages that the show was being
Speaker 1: written about. It was written about in um more historical
Speaker 1: context fashion context, because it was a historical drama, and
Speaker 1: so the ability to get an audience to that show.
Speaker 1: The viewership was over a million viewers per episode. That
Speaker 1: is incredibly difficult to get now because you have five
Speaker 1: hundred shows being produced at this moment in time, and
Speaker 1: so you're not getting the pr that you normally would
Speaker 1: get when there were only you know, two hundred shows
Speaker 1: being produced, and your ability to sustain and continue is
Speaker 1: not going to be there in the same way that
Speaker 1: it was before because if you don't hit those ratings
Speaker 1: out of the gate um buyers are not as patient
Speaker 1: as they want for to grow an audience. Have you
Speaker 1: found that it's it's either ratings or lots and lots
Speaker 1: of acclaim from all you know from critics gushing about
Speaker 1: is that enough to keep a show on the air.
Speaker 1: I think it's you have to have one or the other.
Speaker 1: But even with a lot of critical acclaims, sometime it
Speaker 1: still doesn't keep the show on the air. Yeah. Well, Christina,
Speaker 1: thank you for taking us through the ins and outs
Speaker 1: of dealmaking for the independent producer. It's fascinating and I
Speaker 1: know one of the reasons you're so conversed in on
Speaker 1: this is that you have recently launched an kind of
Speaker 1: an online education venture for people interested in getting into
Speaker 1: the content business that you called TV school. Tell us
Speaker 1: about that, sure. About a year ago, I launched Television
Speaker 1: School dot com. And one of the main reasons I
Speaker 1: did it is that I often speak at some of
Speaker 1: the colleges that have film programs, and what I noticed,
Speaker 1: whether it's Columbia, n y U or Brooklyn College, is
Speaker 1: that they are still traditionally focused predominantly on teaching students
Speaker 1: about the film business, but there isn't as comprehensive an
Speaker 1: education on the TV business. And the reality is, because
Speaker 1: the TV business is booming and the film business is shrinking,
Speaker 1: most of these students are going to go out into
Speaker 1: the world and get a job in TV because there
Speaker 1: are way more jobs. And so I had tons of
Speaker 1: students coming to me asking me questions after I would
Speaker 1: be sort of a guest person teacher for the class,
Speaker 1: and I realized the same questions were being asked over
Speaker 1: and over. And when I work with a lot of writers,
Speaker 1: whether they are super seasoned or just getting into the business,
Speaker 1: there's sort of certain structural UM, just touchstones that you
Speaker 1: kind of need to all have the same language for
Speaker 1: so you can work through developing a pilot script or
Speaker 1: a pilot pitch. And so my husband was always saying
Speaker 1: to me when he would listen to me on phone
Speaker 1: calls with people, just write a book. You say the
Speaker 1: same thing over and over a day after day. And
Speaker 1: so instead of doing that, I decided I would put
Speaker 1: like a master class UM, a series of episodes that
Speaker 1: talk about different aspects of what it is to be
Speaker 1: and get into the TV business. How to write a
Speaker 1: pilot script, how to get an agent, how to maneuver
Speaker 1: through a deal. It's really the soup to nuts of
Speaker 1: working in the TV business and my twenty five years
Speaker 1: of experience of what I've learned and sort of the
Speaker 1: reality of it, not the sort of fake like, oh,
Speaker 1: you'll make lots of money, because that's not always the case.
Speaker 1: And so I really wanted to give people, UM the
Speaker 1: real information of what you have to go through, how
Speaker 1: it works, how long things take, UM, what the reality is.
Speaker 1: I have a lot of young writers that come in
Speaker 1: when we actually do sell something, they think they're getting rich,
Speaker 1: and then when look at the deal, they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: maybe I do have to keep a day job for
Speaker 1: a little white hard to pay the rent on this. Yes,
Speaker 1: and so it's you know, even when you're a staff writer,
Speaker 1: it's better than working at Starbucks. But when you're getting
Speaker 1: your first job as a staff writer on a show,
Speaker 1: you're not making an enormous amount of money. And so
Speaker 1: I think it's just really important to get the real
Speaker 1: information to people. Um and so anybody who's interested in
Speaker 1: working in television. I think it's a great just sort
Speaker 1: of overview of how to work in the business and
Speaker 1: how to get your toe in there and really what
Speaker 1: to do. So that's why I started that. And is
Speaker 1: it something where you pay per episode or you you
Speaker 1: pay a fee and get a get a number of
Speaker 1: episodes over you do. There's seven episodes right now. The
Speaker 1: first one you can watch for free to get a
Speaker 1: flavor of what it feels like, and it's a hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: I wanted to keep the cost down so that pretty
Speaker 1: much anybody could afford to buy that. There's also downloadable elements.
Speaker 1: One of the biggest things that most people make the
Speaker 1: mistake on when they want to take out a project.
Speaker 1: Their producer, a director or a writer or even an
Speaker 1: actor that wants to get in and you know, make
Speaker 1: something for themselves. They come up with an idea in
Speaker 1: a vacuum and they don't know the marketplace. So what
Speaker 1: we do is very important. Yeah, we constantly update information
Speaker 1: who all the buyers are, who are the people that
Speaker 1: work at all of these different places, and what they
Speaker 1: have in development and production, so that you don't waste
Speaker 1: six months to a year of your time coming up
Speaker 1: with a pitch or a script that you then learn, uh,
Speaker 1: some platform or some buyer is about to launch as
Speaker 1: a TV series and you've wasted an entire year of
Speaker 1: your time, And we update that every couple of months.
Speaker 1: And so part of UM enrolling in TV school is
Speaker 1: the ability to constantly have that renewed information. So you're
Speaker 1: kind of part of an information club that you get,
Speaker 1: which I think makes a huge difference when you're going
Speaker 1: out and just starting. So you get sort of insider
Speaker 1: info on what's going on. Yeah, it sounds like a
Speaker 1: good sounds like a good resource. Have you had much
Speaker 1: uptake on the classes, Yeah, it's um. It goes through
Speaker 1: waves probably around graduation season exactly. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: parents who are listening to their children saying that they
Speaker 1: either want to go to one of these film schools
Speaker 1: or graduating from college who want to get into the business,
Speaker 1: and they are buying it for their kids to say, Okay,
Speaker 1: here's the real deal of what it really takes. Are
Speaker 1: you willing to do that? Uh? I guess my last
Speaker 1: question for you here is, UM, would would you in
Speaker 1: this environment, as as fraught as it is. I can
Speaker 1: see your enthusiasm for being a producer in packaging material?
Speaker 1: Would you ever go back to the executive side if
Speaker 1: the right if a compelling opportunity came up, would you
Speaker 1: go back to being a programmer or a buyer? I would,
Speaker 1: you know, I've been thinking about it a lot recently, UM,
Speaker 1: and I think that there's a lot of new opportunity
Speaker 1: with new technology. My whole career has always been based
Speaker 1: on wanting to um challenge myself and learn something new
Speaker 1: and about every five years. I sort of, you know,
Speaker 1: started on the programming so I to the channel, learned
Speaker 1: what a domestic buyer did, then went into an international
Speaker 1: studio to really learn the international market and the studio
Speaker 1: side of the business. And now as a producer, I
Speaker 1: sort of get to take all of those skills and
Speaker 1: put them together. And I love the more entrepreneurial idea
Speaker 1: of working at some of these places that are really
Speaker 1: fusing tech and um content, and so I find that
Speaker 1: incredibly exciting. If there were an opportunity that would be
Speaker 1: able to really be somewhere where I could grow and
Speaker 1: learn something new and really attack a new challenge, then
Speaker 1: I would absolutely be open to that. Great. Well, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for stopping buying giving us a glimpse
Speaker 1: into the into the life and the work of an
Speaker 1: independent producer in this in this crazy moment for television.
Speaker 1: Appreciate it. Thanks for having me, Thanks for listening. Be
Speaker 1: sure to join us next week for another episode of
Speaker 1: Strictly Business.