Category: The TV Biz

Time to Get Your Script in for the Humanitas Prize Competiiton

The Writers Guild of America wants us all to know that “HUMANITAS is pleased to announce a Call for Entries for the 43rd annual HUMANITAS Prize Awards. The winners will be announced at the HUMANITAS Prize Awards held in February 2018.”

Well, not exactly all of us. The Humanitas Prize has been a profoundly important contest over the years, but it has a catch. A production based on the submitted teleplay “must have had a national release on Television (Broadcast, Cable, Internet and Satellite),” and a screenplay must have been released theatrically in the year of the contest, in this case, 2017.

So, yikes!, yeah, to enter you’ve got to be some kind of a pro. While you’re mulling that over, here are the full deets: read article

Nielsen’s TV ratings now include Hulu and YouTube TV

The end of “real” TV is, um, nigh. Very nigh:

by Anthony Ha

Nielsen is taking a big step in measuring streaming TV today with the addition of Hulu and YouTube TV to its ratings. read article

The Ongoing Search for Great Women’s Roles in TV

When this TVWriter™ minion took Larry Brody’s Online Workshop some months ago, he was always yakking about how we should “write roles that actors will want to play.”

The writer’s main job, LB stressed, was to “write to service the actors. Good roles are what good actors live for. Not only are great characters good for the script and the show and the stars, they’re also good for the writers because when you get down to it, being loved by actors is like having an all access pass for your burgeoning career.”

So, with that in mind, here’s a little ditty about just how much good new writers are needed. (Armed with this info, we’re sure it’s just a matter of time till you push your way to the front of the line.) read article

Pay-TV Subscriptions are Falling, Falling, Falling

To misquote a legend: Is this the end, my friend?

Pay-TV Subs to Drop by 10 Million Viewers by 2021
by Daniel Frankel

S&P Global Market Intelligence’s Kagan is the latest research company to come out with bearish subscriber-growth projections for the traditional pay TV industry, predicting that U.S. cable, satellite and IPTV operators will lose another 10.8 million customers by 2021.

The total U.S. pay TV subscriber base will stand at only 82.3 million at that time, off about 20% from its peak. read article

The Real Reason Saturday Morning Cartoons Disappeared

A still from one of my favorite episodes of ye olde Silver Surfer Animated Series

NOTE FROM LB: People often ask me why The Silver Surfer animated series went off the air (leaving the ultimate cliffhanger – the destruction of the universe) – um, hanging, and I give them all the answers I was given at the time:

“We got creamed in the ratings.”

“The network thought the show was too mature.” read article