Status Anxiety

Wednesday, 9th April 2008

Pitching television programmes is like wining and dining a gorgeous blonde

I have finally done it. After two decades of pitching ideas to television executives, one of them has been commissioned. The first episode was broadcast last week and attracted several million viewers.

OK, now for the bad news. The person named as the ‘creator’ of the show is someone who I have never met and who, until I saw his name in the credits, I had never heard of. In other words, the idea was bought from someone else. When I pitched it in late 2005 I was told it couldn’t be done because it would cost too much. Needless to say, they have not been in touch since.

For the record, I don’t think my proposal was stolen. I emailed the commissioning editor I met with demanding an explanation and she assured me that the ‘creator’ pitched one of her colleagues with the same idea about a year later, by which time it had become more affordable. It is nothing more than a coincidence.

Nevertheless, this episode is typical of my experience with television executives. Time after time, they have taken me out to lunch to discuss programme ideas, only to disappear when the cheque arrives, never to be heard of again. I feel like a sad singleton who has been wining and dining the same gorgeous blonde for 20 years and has yet to receive a goodnight kiss. And this in spite of the fact that I have lavished my best material on her — scintillating gossip, witty one-liners, amusing anecdotes, etc. After each fruitless encounter I vow to have nothing more to do with her, but she only has to bat her eyelids and I come running. It is pathetic.

Actually, it is not true to say I have never got anywhere. In 2003, I submitted a proposal to BBC2 for a four-part series called From the D-List to the A-List. The first episode would chart my efforts to get on to the D-List, the second the C-List, and so on. The idea was to send up our society’s obsession with celebrity, a sort of Rake’s Progress of the modern age.

1 | 2 Next page

More articles from: Toby Young | this section

Print this article | Email to a friend | Permalink | Comments (2)

Post this entry to: del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit

Post comment

David Short

April 11th, 2008 12:39am Report this comment

Why does the Speccie just get worse and worse; it hard even to hark back to the old standards now. They've slipped so far that now we must simply point out mistakes that shouldn't be seen in any publication not edited by morons.

Why couldn't anyone see what is very wrong about this sentence: 'Time after time, they have taken me out to lunch to discuss programme ideas, only to disappear when the cheque arrives...'. It should 'check', ie the bill. Otherwise, it doesn't make sense as criticism, i.e. why would TB care if the exec had disappeared as long as the 'cheque' had arrived. He'd been paid; the exact opposite of getting ripped off for the lunch bill.

Didn't you learn anything from that issue when you printed the same story twice?

D Short

April 11th, 2008 8:57am Report this comment

Hey, Speccie. It's 'check' (as in 'bill' not 'cheque'! Isn't it time you brought back sub-editors? Didn't you get enough egg on your face when you published the same story twice? This mistake screws up the meaning entirely. To think The Spectator was once a 'literary' magazine.
This is my second attempt at trying to register this point. Hope I won't be censored this time.

Post comment