Broadcast Nets Striking Out With Pilot-Free Series

Partly by choice and partly by necessity because the WGA strike cut short the pilot season, this year was supposed to be the dawn of a new era for series development. NBC skipped pilots, going straight to series, while CBS opted for shorter, less expensive drama presentations.

“Pilots are vastly overrated,” CBS president and CEO Leslie Moonves declared last spring.

Said NBC Universal president and CEO Jeff Zucker in January, “The odds of success are just as great going straight to series as they are in making all of those pilots.”

Less than a year later, few are talking about overhauling the pilot format.

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