Update on Pilot Week, Fresh Blood initiatives.
It seems 10's Pilot Week may not return until 2022, as networks adopt a cautionary approach to development.
- Published by David Knox
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- Filed under Coronavirus, News, Upfronts
10’s Pilot Week may not return until 2022, if it happens.
TV execs from 10 and ABC last week spoke to Media Mentor’s Running Live panel, about their respective development initiatives, Pilot Week and Fresh Blood.
Todd Abbott, ABC’s Head of Comedy said, “It’s something that was done a couple of years ago and was relatively successful. There’s no immediate plans for revisiting it because as everyone know we’ve got limited funds. We’re focussed on getting the most bang for our buck.
“I’m very keen to find ways to foster emerging voices, and find the sort of things that formed a lot of my comedy tastes when I was a young ‘un. Weird things on the ABC late at night!”
Rick Maier Head of Drama at Network 10 also confirmed Pilot Week was currently out due to COVID.
“Thanks to COVID not this year, but probably towards the end of this year we’ll be looking for the following year.
“Pilot Week is really expensive, setting up 8 shows. It’s 8 sets of options for actors… 8 sets of everything. We’ve done it twice and we’ve had some success with it. It’s a wonderful initiative, great that the ABC can do it (with Fresh Blood), wonderful that the commercials can do it as well.”
10 sources recently told TV Tonight it would have more information on Pilot Week in coming months.
2 Responses
We’re all used to things not being 100% polished. Maybe they could do it film festival style – shot on the cheap and refined if picked up
Really hoping it can happen, even if they reduce it to 4 or 5 shows…I’ve definitely enjoyed their line-ups in the past two years.