BOSTON – While some might think it's easy to create a hit television series, programming executives say the process is anything but simple and painless.
Executives speaking at the INTX show Tuesday said that there’s no fast and specific formula to creating a popular and top-rated show but rather a series of difficult and often gut-wrenching decisions that more often than not lead to a successful program.
“It’s more than just looking at a show -- it's not a beauty pageant,” Gary Levine, Showtime Networks president of programming, said during the afternoon Super Session moderated by Multichannel News and Broadcasting & Cable editorial director Mark Robichaux. “It’s never an instantaneous process.”
Added FX Networks president of original programming Eric Schrier: “It would make our jobs a lot easer to plug in a show into a formula, but at the end of the day you have to have professional courage and fight for it to be the best it can be.”
