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Speaker 1: Welcome to Daily Brity, your daily dose of news and

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Speaker 1: analysis for entertainment industry insiders. It's Thursday, January twenty ninth,

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty six. I'm your host, Cynthia Littleton. I am

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Speaker 1: co editor chief of Righty alongside Ramin Setuda. I'm in

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Speaker 1: LA he's in New York, and Righty has reporters around

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Speaker 1: the world covering the business of entertainment. In today's episode,

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Speaker 1: we'll hear from Bridy's Joe Otterson on NBC reviving pilot

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Speaker 1: season sort of. And we'll hear from my friend and

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Speaker 1: longtime colleague Andrew Wallenstein of Illuminate, who has a preview

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Speaker 1: of Friday's Strictly Business podcast episode. But before we get

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Speaker 1: to that, here are a few headlines just in this

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Speaker 1: morning that you need to know. Was a tough Q

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Speaker 1: four for Comcasts. The cable giant reported earnings this morning

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Speaker 1: that showed the company was crimped by losses of broadband customers,

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Speaker 1: a less robust slate of universal movies, and broader losses

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Speaker 1: at the Peacock streaming platform. The numbers show that Comcast

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Speaker 1: is navigating through a very difficult operating climate for traditional

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Speaker 1: media companies. Q four also included the completion of the

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Speaker 1: Versant spinoff, which will undoubtedly help improve the balance sheet

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Speaker 1: for the Q one. Twenty twenty six, Amazon Prime Video

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Speaker 1: had a surprise for us this morning. Jury Duty is back.

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Speaker 1: Season two of the offbeat series that garnered so much

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Speaker 1: attention and even an Emmy nomination a couple of years ago,

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Speaker 1: will be back with a new setting, Jury Duty presents

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Speaker 1: Company Retreat. It's set to premiere on March twentieth, with

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Speaker 1: its first three episodes, followed by two more episodes on

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Speaker 1: March twenty seventh, and a three episode finale on April third.

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Speaker 1: That's a very interesting release pattern and a sign that

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Speaker 1: streaming protocols are changing this time around. The setting for

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Speaker 1: the show will be a corporate retreat where only one

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Speaker 1: person doesn't know that the whole thing is a big

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Speaker 1: put on. Speaking of big put ons, The Truman Show

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Speaker 1: The Pressiat nineteen ninety eight drama from director Peter Weir

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Speaker 1: starring Jim Carrey, is one of twenty five films inducted

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Speaker 1: into the Library of Congress's National Film Registry. Other titles

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Speaker 1: joining include Inception, Clueless, The Incredibles, The Big Chill, The

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Speaker 1: Karate Kid, and one of my favorites, the incredible gospel

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Speaker 1: music documentary Say Amen, Somebody. The Library of Congress adds

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Speaker 1: twenty five films of artistic or historic significance to its

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Speaker 1: registry every year. My colleague Rebecca Rubin has the story

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Speaker 1: with the full list of this year's titles. All of

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Speaker 1: these stories and so much more can be found on

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Speaker 1: Variety dot com right now. And now it's time for

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Speaker 1: conversations with Friday journalists about news and trends and show business.

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Speaker 1: Joe Otterson, Friday's TV News editor, explains why NBC is

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Speaker 1: returning to a TV tradition pilots. Joe Otterson, thanks for

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Speaker 1: joining me.

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Speaker 2: Good to be back at Daily Variety.

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Speaker 1: To happen in Place? I read with great interest to

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Speaker 1: your recent story. You took a step back and analyzed

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Speaker 1: what's going on with NBC's development. That seemed like it

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Speaker 1: was a return to old times. They were ordering pilots

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Speaker 1: fast and furious in that old fashioned system that we

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Speaker 1: had known for many years but really went away in

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Speaker 1: COVID and never came back. Joe, what stood out to

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Speaker 1: you about NBC and the way that they're handling their

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Speaker 1: content development season this year?

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Speaker 2: It turns out everything old is New again. NBC has

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Speaker 2: ordered six pilots as of right now in the traditional

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Speaker 2: pilot season window, with plans to kind of get them

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Speaker 2: staffed up and cast and shot and everything and ready

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Speaker 2: for upfronts, which, like you said, that hasn't really been

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Speaker 2: a thing since COVID. It's honestly really interesting because I

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Speaker 2: talked to some folks within NBC and they said, you know,

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Speaker 2: it was always their intention to kind of get back

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Speaker 2: to this traditional pilot season model. It's worked in television

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Speaker 2: for a very, very long time, but things kind of

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Speaker 2: kept getting in the way. First it was COVID. Then

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Speaker 2: there were the strikes, I mean this big content and

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Speaker 2: contractions within Hollywood, so it just kind of kept throwing

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Speaker 2: things for a loops.

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Speaker 1: It's interesting because the structure provided by pilot season there

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Speaker 1: was a ripple effect in the timing of when pickup

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Speaker 1: decisions were made. And it was something that from the

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Speaker 1: minute I started covering this business in the mid nineties,

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Speaker 1: executives and talent would shake their fist out, why the

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Speaker 1: tyranny of pilot season, Why do we have to do this?

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Speaker 1: It's an artificial thing, and it's a quick primer. It

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Speaker 1: really was a period between about October figure leg after

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Speaker 1: the Emmys through about the end of December early January.

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Speaker 1: That was script season. So networks would buy their scripts,

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Speaker 1: and the Big four networks would sometimes buy upwards of

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Speaker 1: seventy scripts, and then they would develop the scripts, and

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Speaker 1: then the early wave of pilot orders would come into

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Speaker 1: January early February. It would be madness in February and

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Speaker 1: March and April producing these pilots, and then the networks

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Speaker 1: with the upfronts were always that third week of May,

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Speaker 1: and network executives the stories of them all gathering into

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Speaker 1: dark rooms to screen pilots, and people would fight over

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Speaker 1: which ones would get ordered like it was a very

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Speaker 1: regimented process over you know, cigars and brandy, right, or

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Speaker 1: other types of stimulants, no doubt, I'm sure seventies and

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Speaker 1: eighties were probably pretty wild. So that just imposed annual structure.

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Speaker 1: And then the other thing is that a writer would

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Speaker 1: make more money for a pilot. The fee would sometimes

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Speaker 1: be like one hundred and thirty percent of what you

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Speaker 1: would get for an episodic, And while people railed their

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Speaker 1: fists at it, it created a timetable and it just

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Speaker 1: added structure to a process that could otherwise be quite chaotic.

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Speaker 2: I think pilots, for whatever reason, became this much maligned

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Speaker 2: thing within the creative community in Hollywood since the start

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Speaker 2: of the streaming era, because Netflix imposed this idea that no,

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Speaker 2: we're either going to pick something up straight to series

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Speaker 2: or we're not going to do it at all, and

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Speaker 2: everybody just kind of jumped on that model, and then

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Speaker 2: you had these shows getting greenlit with these ridiculous budgets,

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Speaker 2: and you're kind of figuring it out after you've already

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Speaker 2: picked up the show, and pilots are an incredibly useful

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Speaker 2: tool for figuring out if a show really has potential,

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Speaker 2: if a cast has chemistry, if the writing is good,

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Speaker 2: if the design is good. I mean, famously like Game

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Speaker 2: of Thrones, Like they shot the first episode of that

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Speaker 2: with many, many different aspects to the show that we

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Speaker 2: now came to know and love, and then they completely

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Speaker 2: redid it and reworked it, and now it's one of

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Speaker 2: the most popular shows of all time. And there's so

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Speaker 2: many stories like that. So pilots are a really, really

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Speaker 2: useful tool that for whatever reason, we're just kind of

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Speaker 2: left by the wayside here for a long time. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: was the traditional broadcast pilot season model the most efficient,

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Speaker 2: probably not in terms of the number of things they

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Speaker 2: ordered and how many things ultimately didn't get picked up

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Speaker 2: then and everything like that, but it was still a

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Speaker 2: very useful tool. And when you're talking about building a weekly,

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Speaker 2: you know, schedule that requires you to fill a lot

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Speaker 2: of hours of programming, it made sense at the time.

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Speaker 2: So I think the way NBC's doing it is smart

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Speaker 2: because it's a much more focused approach this way than

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Speaker 2: the way it was before.

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Speaker 1: Are a lot of people that were disappointed come the

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Speaker 1: end of pilot season, and there were famous stories of

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Speaker 1: scripts that would move from network to network, and Netflix

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Speaker 1: in its very early years of original programming, would shop

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Speaker 1: among some of those rejected pilots, and there were a

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Speaker 1: couple of times where they did actually pick up things.

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Speaker 2: Ye mean Schmidz. Oh, it's interesting to me too, because yes,

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Speaker 2: NBC is doing this pilot season, but you're also seeing

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Speaker 2: streamers now start to employ pilots more in their overall strategies.

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Speaker 2: I mean, fax feeding into the Hulu system, they do

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Speaker 2: a lot of pilots and they have been for a

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Speaker 2: long time. Onyx Collective and other Hulu brand has been

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Speaker 2: is doing more pilots now. I think HBO Max has

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Speaker 2: a number of pilots in the works right now.

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Speaker 1: Well, as you point out, HBO and FX have almost

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Speaker 1: always done pilots, so nothing happens in absolute term. So

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Speaker 1: let me ask you now, from the pilots that NBC

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Speaker 1: is picking up, what are you reading about what they're

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Speaker 1: looking for in the coming year.

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Speaker 2: And they've boarded six pilots so far, and of those,

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Speaker 2: five of them could pretty well be described as kind

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Speaker 2: of cop procedural case of the week shows. There's another

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Speaker 2: pilot they have, I believe it's called Protected If Memory Serves,

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Speaker 2: which isn't strictly speaking, a procedural, but it's about a

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Speaker 2: law enforcement family that's being targeted by this mysterious assassin.

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Speaker 2: NBC obviously has tremendous success with the law and Order franchise,

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Speaker 2: with the One Chicago franchise, so they clearly know what

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Speaker 2: works for them, and the procedural format has really seen

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Speaker 2: a big resurgence now in the past few years because

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Speaker 2: you look at the kind of shows that are the

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Speaker 2: most watched shows across all of streaming right now. They're

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Speaker 2: week to week shows with these deep libraries that can

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Speaker 2: run for one hundred seasons that just people love to watch.

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Speaker 2: They're just the most bingeable types of shows you can imagine.

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Speaker 2: And so now you're definitely seeing that come back in

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Speaker 2: a very real way.

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Speaker 1: And we know that high wire act of having shows

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Speaker 1: that will work on a linear channel in the old

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Speaker 1: fashioned bring them to the set way, and then also

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Speaker 1: can have some traction on your sibling streamer. And all

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Speaker 1: of the big four networks now have sibling streamers. That's

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Speaker 1: the bullseye now in television. And I want to give

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Speaker 1: a show on the procedural front to ABC and Hulu

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Speaker 1: because Dana Walden and Craig Erwick know that these are

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Speaker 1: the types of shows that work. ABC should get some

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Speaker 1: credit for things like High Potential and Will Trent that

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Speaker 1: really blend that character development that characterizes in procedurals, but

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Speaker 1: has that engine of the case of the week, conflict

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Speaker 1: of the week that has to be overcome, and they've

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Speaker 1: seen real success with it. And the Pit is also

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Speaker 1: another perfect exist.

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Speaker 2: I was gonna says like that elevated procedural And let's

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Speaker 2: not forget CBS matt Lock, Tracker, Fire Country.

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Speaker 1: Your story had lots of little touches about pilot season

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Speaker 1: of Old and development of Today, and it was a

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Speaker 1: great read and exactly what we are supposed to be

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Speaker 1: doing here, which is to cover the breaking news but

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Speaker 1: also step back and say what's going on here? And Joe,

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Speaker 1: you're one of the best at both. Thank you, Thank you, boss.

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Speaker 1: I'm going to close with the hot take. One of

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Speaker 1: the pilots is The Rockford Files. This is on my

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Speaker 1: top five shows of all time. I love Jim Rockford.

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Speaker 1: I love the world that he lived in. I loved

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Speaker 1: his Chevy Malibu. I loved that he lived in Malibu

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Speaker 1: but lived in a crummy trailer. It just had the

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Speaker 1: light and the dark and the fun, the and it

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Speaker 1: had so many great In addition to Jim Rockford, it

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Speaker 1: had so many great recurring characters. I'll never say never,

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Speaker 1: but the bar is gonna be high, and it starts

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Speaker 1: with a compelling lead actor as good as James Garner.

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Speaker 1: NBC tried it about fifteen years ago with the great

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Speaker 1: showrunner David Shore, and to their credit, they realized they

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Speaker 1: just didn't have it. They did not want to sully

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Speaker 1: the original brand with an inferior remake. So I trust

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Speaker 1: that the good folks at NBC will make sure that

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Speaker 1: if they do pick it up, that it is worthy

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Speaker 1: of the Rockford Files that I grew up loving.

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Speaker 2: I will say that lead role in that pilot has

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Speaker 2: certainly garnered a lot of the tension already.

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Speaker 1: Joe, thank you for that terrifically old Variety bad pun.

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Speaker 2: It's a good one. I'm breaking my arm patting myself

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Speaker 2: on the back for that one.

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Speaker 1: And now we turn to Andrew Wallenstein, chief media analyst

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Speaker 1: for Variety's sibling data company Illuminate. Andy brings us a

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Speaker 1: preview of Friday's episode of Strictly Business, which is daily

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Speaker 1: Variety's companion interview podcast that is released on Fridays. Illuminate

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Speaker 1: tracks viewership of streaming originals, movies, and TV shows every day,

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Speaker 1: and at the end of the year they produce an

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Speaker 1: annual deep Dive report that highlights trends and market share

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Speaker 1: movement among the big platforms. Andy, who is a Variety

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Speaker 1: lum launched Strictly Business with me back in twenty eighteen,

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Speaker 1: and although he's moved on to Illuminate, it's always a

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Speaker 1: treat to have him come on and talk about the

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Speaker 1: stuff he knows best. Numbers, data, digital and where the

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Speaker 1: marketplace is going. Andrew Wallenstein, chief media analyst for Illuminate,

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Speaker 1: thanks for joining me.

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Speaker 2: Good to be with you.

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Speaker 1: You and your team at Illuminate have just released your

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Speaker 1: annual Illuminate Film and TV Year end Report. It's packed

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Speaker 1: with news and info and stats about the big wide

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Speaker 1: world of film and television that Variety obsessively covers. And

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Speaker 1: this is a preview of tomorrow's episode of Strictly Business Daily,

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Speaker 1: Variety's companion podcast, where you are really going to dig

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Speaker 1: into it and explore all the nooks and crannies and

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Speaker 1: info that you have uncovered. Give us the top line, TLDR.

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Speaker 1: What you've learned, What trends, what patterns that you're seeing

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Speaker 1: in the data this year.

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Speaker 3: Well, it's all about taking stock of the year in

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Speaker 3: streaming originals, where we saw some very interesting surprising trends.

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Speaker 3: Huge jump in the amount of consumption of original streaming content,

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Speaker 3: particularly series. Why is that, Well, that's where we really

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Speaker 3: get into it. It's about what we're seeing in terms

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Speaker 3: of Netflix is really starting to get a stronger rivalry

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Speaker 3: with other streamers, who in twenty twenty five showed an

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Speaker 3: ability to put bigger hits and more of them than

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Speaker 3: we've ever seen before. Netflix is starting to feel the

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Speaker 3: breath of the competition on its neck and away it

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Speaker 3: never has before, and I think that's largely because you're

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Speaker 3: seeing hits as varied as The Pit on HBO Max.

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Speaker 3: You're seeing on Peacock. The number one show of the

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Speaker 3: year for the first time was not Netflix, It wasn't

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Speaker 3: even scripted. It was Love Island USA. So lots of

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Speaker 3: changes in the world of streaming originals, both TV and film.

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Speaker 1: So I think if you ask most people in the

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Speaker 1: entertainment business, they would think that Peacock is still pretty

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Speaker 1: distant from the competition, but it looks like they got

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Speaker 1: themselves a hit.

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Speaker 3: They did, and Love Island USA was towering above the

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Speaker 3: competition with the advantage that there's a lot more episodes

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Speaker 3: in a season than your average weekly series. But at

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Speaker 3: the end of the day, they got to come out

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Speaker 3: and watch all that episodes, and when it was all

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Speaker 3: summed up, it was a good three or four million

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Speaker 3: above second place competition like Landman and The Pit, which

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Speaker 3: were big hits in their own right.

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Speaker 1: For the ecosystem, it's good to see the hits spread

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Speaker 1: around and it's not one outlet like Netflix just dominating

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Speaker 1: all of the top shows, even with Netflix's incredible breadth

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Speaker 1: that as we know, may get even bigger in the

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Speaker 1: coming months if they are able to pull off the

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Speaker 1: Warner Brothers Discovery acquisition. Interesting. Of course, the other really

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Speaker 1: big trend in twenty twenty five was, as we've talked about,

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Speaker 1: you saw those lines cross for YouTube and more people

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Speaker 1: are watching YouTube on their television sets, meaning that it's

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Speaker 1: becoming just like old fashioned TV. And we're even seeing

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Speaker 1: the YouTube of it all become an issue as they

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Speaker 1: start the regulatory battle over Netflix and Warner Brothers Discovery.

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Speaker 1: And you've seen Netflix pointing to YouTube and say, hey,

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Speaker 1: don't worry about our market share, look at youtub's. Do

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Speaker 1: you address the YouTube of it all? Do you track

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Speaker 1: YouTube or are you still mostly focused on the aid

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Speaker 1: streaming platforms?

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Speaker 3: In this report, we really wanted to focus on the

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Speaker 3: paid streaming platforms, but there's no denying that YouTube is

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Speaker 3: a juggernaut onto itself that is going to command more

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Speaker 3: and more attention.

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Speaker 1: Well, Andy, I know there's a lot more data and

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Speaker 1: details to dive into, so really encourage daily wriady listeners

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Speaker 1: to look in your feeds because you will get the

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Speaker 1: Strictly Business episode on Friday, and I myself can't wait

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Speaker 1: to listen. Thanks for your time, Andy anytime. As we

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Speaker 1: close out today's episode, here's a few things we're watching for.

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Speaker 1: My great colleague Brian Steinberg is in his annual marathon

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Speaker 1: of previewing the Super Bowl ads that we'll all be

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Speaker 1: watching and debating a week from Sunday. So far, he's

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Speaker 1: got stories up on Pepsi, Hymn's and hers, Instacart, and

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Speaker 1: the GLP one provider Row and he's certainly not done yet.

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Speaker 1: Check out his stories for the scoop on the stars

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Speaker 1: and the strategy behind the blurbs we'll all be talking about.

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Speaker 1: ESPN's thirty for thirty franchise will premiere The Philly Special,

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Speaker 1: a look at the Philadelphia Eagles upset win in twenty

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Speaker 1: eighteen over Tom Brady's New England Patriots that landed the

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Speaker 1: Eagles their first ever Super Bowl win. Starting today, Variety

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Speaker 1: will produce the first of four digital dailies out of

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Speaker 1: the Gothenburg Film Festival in Sweden and hard to Believe.

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Speaker 1: In just two weeks, Variety will be sending a big

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Speaker 1: contingent to the Berlin Film Festival. We love to hear

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Speaker 1: from our listeners, so please send thoughts, scripes, and other

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Speaker 1: feedback about Daily Variety to podcasts at Variety dot com

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Speaker 1: Before we go, Congrats to Zach Olan. He's been named

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Speaker 1: Senior VP of Development and Current Series for Disney Television Animation.

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Speaker 1: He's coming back to Disney after previously working for thirteen

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Speaker 1: years at ABC and ABC Studios. In between, he spent

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Speaker 1: time at Nickelodeon and as an independent producer. Thanks for listening.

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Speaker 1: This episode was written and reported by me Cynthia Littleton,

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Speaker 1: with contributions from Joe Otterson and Andrew Wainstein. Stick Snake's

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Speaker 1: Hike Picks. Please leave us a review at the podcast

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Speaker 1: platform of your choice, and please tune in Monday for

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Speaker 1: another episode of Daily Variety