5 Tips on How to Sell Your TV Show Idea

A few years ago I wrote a series of columns about How to Sell Your TV Show Idea based on my experiences as a television writer. I still get emails about those columns. Here is the condensed Reader’s Digest version, plus some new advice!

1. The Stephen J. Cannell Way

Stephen J. Cannell wrote spec scripts for five years while working for his dad’s furniture company. He finally got his break and wrote for TV shows such as Adam-12, Ironside and It Takes a Thief. He built up a track record as a writer (very important in TV) and went on to create over 40 TV shows such as The Rockford Files, The Greatest American Hero, The A-Team and 21 Jumpstreet. Get Stephen’s advice on pitching TV shows on his web site.

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2. The Kaufman/Krane Way Marta Kaufman and her writing partner David Crane had never written for any TV shows. Their writing experience was writing off-Broadway plays in New York. When they came up with the idea for a show called Dream On, common sense would have said they had no chance.

But they had power agent Nancy Josephson (whose dad started mega-agency ICM) in their corner who got them pitch meetings and they sold the show to HBO. They later went onto create Friends based on their New York days, and the rest is TV history.

3. The Mark Burnett Way Mark Burnett had no TV experience and no super agents in his corner. He was a paratrooper in the British Army who fought in the Falklands War. On the advice of his mum, he quit the military and moved to Los Angeles.

Burnett sold his first series, Eco Challenge, by finding advertisers who would pay for the show. In short, he basically by-passed the networks and got the ad money first, then pitched the show. In short, he did all the leg work for the networks, all they had to do was air it, and cash the advertiser’s checks. He used the same marketing technique to sell his mega-hit reality series Survivor and The Apprentice.

4. The 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter Way W. Bruce Cameron had no TV writing experience, but he did write a best-selling book, 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter, which got optioned and turned into an ABC-TV series starring John Ritter.

Hollywood often feels that a best-selling book is a good gamble because it has a “built-in audience.” I think that advice on television still holds up today, but if I were to add anything it’s how the web has altered the landscape. The field is wide open for people to break into TV. So here is one more piece of advice:

5. The Internet Way If you can put some video shorts on YouTube (and other video sites) and get a lot of traffic, you could sell a TV idea that way too. TV agents are searching the web.

Some TV show pitches have been made into webisodes, such as “The Jeannie Tate Show,” which features a highly-annoying, but funny soccer mom doing a TV talk show from inside her minivan. This web show stars Liz Cackowsk who wrote for the TV show Saturday Night Live.

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