Creating A Show

[George WK Newman]

While there are many, many variances, this thread will try and give guidance on how to get a new show from being a concept to getting on air.

The process steps may include;

1) The Pitch
2) Order Script
3) Order Pilot
4) Negotiations / Testing
5) Order Show
6) Promotion
7) Production Schedule
8) Show episode guides
9) Ratings
10) Profit / Loss
11) Future revenues

[George WK Newman]

1) The Pitch

As a general rule, a network prime-time drama is a coproduction between the television arm of a motion picture studio and an experienced producer with strong writing or storytelling credentials.
Almost every prime time drama begins in one of three ways.
1) most common is when a writer-producer meets with an agent or network executive and a general theme emerges. The writer then locks himself away and produces a script.
2) less common is the reverse, where the writing occurs first then the meeting.
3) a notable celebrity and agent decide the time is right to star in a TV network show. A writer-producer is assigned to the project and the process begins with a series of meetings.

Comedies are more likely to have one of the stars also be part of the writing team, since they often come from a comedic background.

Reality shows are often bought on the basis of the producer's track record, and on the potential of the idea.

Another way to look at it, is concept development, and the various ways shows are concoted.

A creative person may concoct an idea, often the result of observing the current marketplace and adding or altering a key element. For example, Medium is a fairly traditional police procedural, but it adds the element of a psychic.

Television producers and programmers are notorious copycats. This copycat notion is related to the cyclical nature of television program formats.

A more strategic approach is to fully understand an audience, and to develop programming based on audience patterns. This is a tricky process that requires a thorough understanding and appreciation of market research.

More often programs are acquired and/or produced to support a specific brand identity. This is especially true for cable networks.

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So, how does this work in our game?

Well you start a new thread in the show development board, probably under a new persona of who the showrunner will be. For instance you make up a name for the showrunner who in this case will be the writer/director "Steve Strum".

You post the first kick at the cat with something like this;

Baum Squad - (Steve Strum, writer/director)
No studio currently attached
No actors currently attached

Synopsis;
An hour long procedural action/drama based around two brothers who follow in their father's footsteps and join the New York City bomb disposal unit (the bomb squad). The family name just happens to be Baum (pronounced Bomb). Their Father has mixed feelings about them joining, especially the younger one who he thinks should have gone to law school. And of course their Mother is dead set against them doing this job that keeps her up at night worrying. For their own part the two brothers who were once inseperable are also finding themselves drifting apart as the older one is now engaged and planning a wedding, a family, and moving out of his apartment with his brother. The show will be episodic in nature as there will be a variety of domestic as well as terrorist situations that arise each week.

Then from there network executives involved in development will give their two cents. They may actually say nothing (thanks for calling) or turn it down but give some constructive criticism. Or they may "suggest" revisions, and leave it in your court to decide what to do with your own artistic vision.

Comments;
Emmit; I hate it being set in NYC. Too generic, and too 9/11. How about another city with character like Washington, Boston, or Philly?

Trevor: Does Philadelphia even have a bomb squad? Hate the name. Needs some more action in the name, not cheese. Te concept is still missing something in the family dynamics. Looks like Friday night fodder to me at best.

Susan; What demographic is this going after? Is it a testosterone filled show going after males 15-29, or is it going after the older crowd of both sexes like a CBS procedural? It could work. I'm tempted to say we should buy a script.

Emmit; I had a heads up on this concept a couple months ago and at first was sceptical. But I agree with Susan, a script would be money well spent. But think about some of the suggestions we made.

So you then work on the suggestions and come up with this.

Tick, Tick, Boom - (Steve Strum, writer-director)
No studio currently attached
No actors currently attached

Synopsis;
An hour long procedural action/drama based around two brothers who follow in their Uncle's footsteps in the small but intense Philadelphia Police Department's bomb disposal unit (the bomb squad). Conflict on the show surrounds the brothers' own Father who has always been against his sons doing the dangerous job, and blames his own brother for encouraging them. For their own part the two brothers who were once inseperable are also finding themselves drifting apart as the older one is now engaged and planning a wedding, a family, and moving out of his apartment with his brother. The show will be episodic in nature as there will be a variety of domestic as well as terrorist situations that arise each week.

At this point the network orders the script, which you work on for the next few weeks. Cost to the network should be around $20,000.

[George WK Newman]

2) Order Script

Ordering scripts; unless you get lucky and have a script already written by the prospect (like Desperate Housewives), then you are looking at $10,000 for a 30 minute script and $20,000 for a 60 minute script. These are minimums, and for more experienced writers, or a team of writers, these numbers should be doubled.

Time frame for script writing depends on how the idea came about. If someone is pitching an idea they have already worked on, the script may just need some polishing to make changes based on your meeting. In this case it could be a matter of a couple of weeks.

If on the other hand, its your network idea, and you have only some basic outlines and a synopsis, you will need to possibly interview and hire writer(s), and work with them to shape the script. This process could take as much as three months, with 6 weeks being about the minimum.

Everything else stands still at this point until the script is finished.

The writer ends up in a room for a few weeks writing a script. Then there are meetings, changes in characters, changes in settings, dicussions about casting, dicussions about directors, and sometimes changes in writers.

Most of the time the process reaches a dead-end and nothing is developed. If however things come together then a pilot is planned.

Reality shows in general do not get a script produced. However, some writing may be produced to show what kind of issues or events are expected to be seen each episode.

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How does this work in the game?

Well after the appropriate waiting time to write the script it would be posted in the thread for that show.

Basically it is the outline for the pilot episode. In general since we will be producing shows only for one network and each person will likely only be doing a couple or few shows, there is the opporunity to post a bit of length/detail. It doesn't have to be pages long, but about a screen full, page full, would be great. The pilot script would be longer then a normal show episode write-up because you are trying to sell the network on the show. It really sets the tone and the characters for the show. This way in future episodes you can post something in the write-up like "Pete has second thoughts about going out with the guys for a couple drinks after his shift", and it means something to the reader. Does he have an alcoholic past? Is he a shy introvert? etc. These kinds of details can also be put into an expanded show synopsis. You may also want to post general ideas for story arcs that you have if you think it will help sell the show to the network.

At this point again network executives will give more feedback, hopefully more detailed to go along with your detailed work. They may pass at this point, ask for changes (and then go through the process again), or order the pilot to be made.

[George WK Newman]

3) Pilot

If you decide to proceed to the pilot stage;

Standard pilots; Pilots are expensive to produce. Before a network commits to funding an entire pilot episode, it often requests a pilot presentation, a one-day shoot that, when edited together, gives a general idea of the look and feel of the proposed show. Some pilots can be just a few minutes long (e.g: 10 minutes or less); however, such pilots will not be shown on the air unless more material is subsequently added to them to make them at least twenty-two minutes in length, the actual duration of a nominally "thirty minute" program (taking into account commercials). Occasionally, more than one pilot is commissioned for a particular proposed television series to evaluate what the show would be like with modifications. Star Trek and All in the Family are famous examples of this situation.
The cost of producing a pilot in this way can be the same as producing a normal episode, right up to about 4x the cost of producing an episode if a full length pilot is done.

Time frame to shoot such a pilot will depend mostly on getting contracts signed, a stuido prepped, cast signed and available, directors, etc. The absolute minimum would be a month in a simple pliot with casting and "packaging" already in place. In general it will take between 2 to 3 months from greenlight to delivery. Some cases such as "Lost" were so extravagent they take longer.

Demos
Since the mid 1990s, television producers and networks have increasingly used presentation tapes called "demos" in lieu of full-length pilots. These demos tend to be substantially shorter than a standard episode, and make limited use of original sets and post-production elements. The idea is merely to showcase the cast and the writing. These types of pilots are rarely broadcast, if ever, although the material is sometimes partially retrofitted onto a future episode of the resulting series.
The cost of a demo is about 30-50% of a normal production pilot.

The use of existing sets and the shortened length of the pilot also allows a quicker turn around time. Generally as long as casting does not get in the way, these kind of pilots are turned around in a month or less.

Put Pilot
A put pilot is an agreement between a network and a studio, where the network will incur substantial penalties if the pilot episode is not aired. This is a virtual guarantee that a pilot will be picked up.


www.museum.tv/archives/etv/P/htmlP/pilotprogram/pilotprogram.htm


Other People's Pilots;
To save money and time, the network may look at pilots already produced by studios but passed on by another network. In general its free to look, but if the show is eventually picked up most pilots have contractual agreements where the network picking up the series will have to compensate the network who passed on the pilot for their costs incurred in development. Sometimes a cost sharing agreement with the studio can be worked out.

Some shows can't / don't need pilots;
Survivor is a famous example of a show that was picked up and funded without a pilot being shot. It would not have been practical to shoot a pilot for Survivor. In general reality shows do not get a pilot.

Networks produce many episodes per year in hopes of filling just a handful of open slots.
The cost of a pilot as mentioned about can exceed $2 million for a drama.
Currently this network's total development budget is only set at $20 million, so you can see that thrift and planning will be essential.

Broadcast networks committ to more comedy pilots then drama pilots, but comedies are harder to get on the air. Comedies do not get on the air just because they are funny, they have to be the right replacement for an aging or failed show.

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So how does this work in our game?

There really isn't too much work needed to be done to deliver the pilot. You probably want to give details on what kind of pilot it is, who is in it (will they be staying on if picked up), settings, and maybe a graphics/marketing touch or two.

After viewing it the ratings makers will begin to assess whether this show will be a (superhit, hit, solid, weak, or dismal) based on surveys of our members and their own views. The more testing that is done, if they decide to test with real audiences, the more accurate the test results to the actual results will be; the lower the risk that the tests are off base.

At this point the network may pass, ask for revisions, or decide to pick it up (begin negotiations). It is also quite possible, probably likely if it is early in the season, that the network will simply sit on a decision while they wait for other pilots to be completed, and then decide on its fate.

[George WK Newman]

4) Negotiations / Testing

Pilot testing

A pilot can be tested with network executives and personnel first. The benefit is that if it is a real stinker then it can be discarded at this point without incurring further cost.

The downfalls of this method though are multiple. A high placed exec may actually love one of those stinkers and unduly push it for pickup. A succesful show may be cast adrift due to a small, homogeneous testing audience. Also, while money may be saved in testing, it may leave a negative impression on executive's minds as to your ability to produce good shows ("I can't believe they went this far with this crap, what a waste of money").

Demographic testing done by professionals can be an expensive proposition but is often worth the money. Not only will you find out how much they like it, but what they like about it, what they don't like, and who (demos) likes it best. The testing costs $75,000 for a 30-minute or less show, $100,000 for a one hour show.
The degree of accuracy from the tests will also be dependent on what kind of pilot is produced. In other words, the closer to an actual episode that is presented, the more accurate the feedback.

The costs of testing pilots comes out of the prime time development budget.


Negotiations

Licensing costs;
In the most general of terms, if a network orders a show from a studio with no guarantees beyond the first order, the studio will want to recover as close to all of their costs as possible. Even if the studio breaks even then they still lose money, because they earn nothing towards overhead or the cost of capital.

In broad terms, a half hour studio sitcom will cost between $500,000 (basic with no stars) to $1 million (still pretty basic, some veteran actors but no huge stars). Adding a star to the mix can up the cost by $1 million per episode fairly easily.

An hour long drama or action show similarly starts at $1 million but can quickly escalate to $5 million if it includes a lot of on location shoots, stunts, etc. Again, big stars can raise that price.

Licensing Rights;
Generally the network gets the right to air it originally, plus one time as a repeat, before the studio can sell it to air on cable. There should be a time limit of say one year on the exclusivity right. If the network doesnt care about airing the repeat, they can use this as a bargaining chip to lower the license fee. Cable networks may pay a bigger price to be able to air the episode within the same week of its original airing on the network.

Other

Other rights of renewal, length of term, etc should also be spelt out so that the network is protected from overpaying for a hit show they helped create. It's still the unwritten rule that the network and studio try and lock everyone down for the first 100 episodes, so the first 5 seasons.

Cost overuns, and production increases in future years should also be addressed in general terms. For instance, the network may agree to pay 50% of approved cost overruns, but has the right to say no. The network agrees to production increases of 5% each season, and if more is required the network agrees to negotiate in good faith with the studio.


How Deals Get Done

Programming decisions are rarely made by one person. Typically a network builds staff consensus prior to any commitment. Ultimately the head of programming must make the final decision, but this decision is rarely made without consulting others in the program department. Sales and marketing personnel are often part of the process, especially if advertising or rights sales are an important part of the package.
The premier deal making hub is still Los Angeles, with New York being the next most important.

[George WK Newman]

5) Order Show

Once the basic contract negotiations are done the order is officially announced via a press release. Assuring a studio of a large order allows them to put their minds fully on the creative side of things, not looking for work in case this show falls through. It also has a marginal effect of lowering the cost per episode as longer term contracts can be signed with staff and suppliers. This can be a cost savings per episode of 5-10%. However, the longer the order the more the studio is locked in to pay even if ratings go sour.

Usually a network will order either a full season of episodes or a half order; or something close. This may have to do with projected scheduling. For instance, the network may want a full season of 22 episodes but wants to hedge their bets and only committ to a half season. However, they plan to air 12 episodes before Christmas and 10 after January. Due to production schedules if they order a half season as 12 episodes, instead of just the mathematical half 11 episodes it will allow decision makers a longer period of time to evaluate the series and make a decision on the back 10.

Before a show orde can be placed the details need to be approved by the CEO (currently George WK Newman) , who will run it through advertising, legal, and accounting. Before an order is placed the accounting and advertising departments will come up with a financial plan for the show based on information provided by the head of programming.
When is it expected to air?
License fee (from the contract)?
Ad reveneue (advertising's estimates)?
Rebroadcast revenues?
Advertising budget (head of programming)?

Once the suits are happy with the financial plan they will greenlight the order, and the head of programming will offer out a press release to the media.

[George WK Newman]

6) Promotion

There are basically 3 types of promotion

1) "Free" promos, graphics, etc

2) Promo ads put on our other network shows, prime time or otherwise

3) Advertising spent on other media, including billboards, print ads, internet campaigns, cable tv stations, etc

When evaluating the effectiveness of the ads (hey we're not ad professionals and we don't claim to be), look for the following.
How many times does someone need to see an ad before they buy?
How effective is the ad, in other words how does it look and feel?
Is it being put to the proper audience?
How much is being wasted on an audience that is already buying the product (i.e. current viewers)?
Remember the adage, all advertising is good advertising.

1) "Free". Examples of this would include posting "promos" like has been done at other network game sites. Post them here on your show threads and there is an assumption that these have been floated out on the internet at various media sites. This is also a good way of creating buzz on the board, which might equate to better survey results, which equates to better ratings.
Having a pleasing, and consistent graphics package for the show also helps. I'm hoping we can get a person dedicated to "marketing" who likes to do these sorts of promos. If not then showrunners will have to find a way to generate these on their own if they want to participate.
Free advertising can also come via media posts. In other words yourself or someone on the board posting in the media section a review, etc, of the show, interview with the stars, whatever. Heck you might get some free advertising for your show out of the blue if your lead actor gets arrested for headbutting someone at the bar.

2) Promo ads on our own network. I have no idea, or desire, to handle "bumper ads" or "scrolls" and other short ads of a second or two that run on the networks. We'll just have to assume these are done as normal industry practice.

However, longer ads are something we should deal with. You have the ability to "buy" ads on our own network to run on other shows. You will be buying ads from existing ad stock, in other words ads we could theoretically sell to other advertisers for cash. In this case no cash will change hands but your show will be charged on paper. While for maximum effectiveness promo ads are usually shorter then 30 seconds, we will assume that you buy your time in 30 second blocks. In reality we may team that ad with other show's ads to form a block, or whatever, it doesnt really matter. But the important thing to keep in mind is that when you buy a 30 second ad you will probably actually get 3 10 second ads, which is 3 times repetition to the viewer. This is proven to generate results.

How much does it cost? I think the easiest way to handle this system is a free market system. In other words you need to indicate what show you want to advertise on, and how much. It can be a reoccuring thing (buy a 30 second spot for each of 12 consecutive weeks), or sporadic.

You can buy after the upfronts are done and still receive the 15% discount if you buy a contract. More likely though you are going to want to wait and watch advertising spots go on sale, or put your shows name down for last minute discounts. You may end up receiving the ads at 50% the "rack" rate.

On top of that the network agrees to pay for 25% of whatever the ad costs. In other words your show will only be charged to its Profit/loss 75%, and the network's own advertising budget will be charged 25%. And don't forget you may be able to get the studio to pay some advertising as well.

So for instance, an ad on one of our shows may normally go for $25,000. But you wait until the last minute with your name on the list, and they have an open, unsold spot. Their "spot" rate is say only $12,500 for this ad, and let's assume that the studio in the contract agrees to pay for 20%. For argument sakes let's say your show is called "Daytime" and you decide to buy a spot on a show called "Nightime".

Nightime gets credited with an ad sale of $12,500

Our network ad account absorbs 25% $3,125
the studio pays 20% $2,500
Daytime's budget gets charged $6,875

So for less then $7,000 you get an ad worth $25,000 to some companies.

The process is not as onerous as it seems, as advertising department will take care of most of it. Just find some shows you think would be a good fit to advertise on, and come up with a strategy.

Another thing you might want to look at, if your show is struggling to sell ads, is to make an agreement with another show on our network to buy each other's ads to prop each other up. This way the network absorbs 25% from both of you. It works especially well if the shows are on different nights but cater to the same audience demographic.

3) Advertising on other media. I really don't want to get into a lot of detail on how much various venues cost. In general this sort of media campaign will be out of your reach, as the minimums can be pretty high. An exception to that however would be cable networks where advertising costs per million are cheaper then networks. You might not make yourself any friends at the network by advertising on cable but you do have a show to sell. Other campaigns such as print, radio, billboards you can run by throwing a set amount of $$$ at it, probably in large incrments like $100,000. If you want to run details, like actually show what the print ad will look like, or the billboard, this is fine and can only increase the effectiveness of the ad in our eyes. However, its not necessary and you can just establish a budget and let it go to the black hole of advertising. The network will not cover any of this cost however, your show will be charged for 100% unless the studio agrees to cover some of it.

In the future our conglomerate may ad cable stations etc to the mix which could help, or if your show is produced by a company that owns cable stations etc, they might be willing to cover a bigger percentage of ad costs if you choose to spend it on one of their properties. Creativity and research are your friends in this regard.

[George WK Newman]

7) Production Schedule

Drama production resembles production of a motion picture, using a combination of soundstage and locations.
An hour long drama is shot in just a few days.
An experienced and efficient crew can produce and deliver an hour drama for just over $1 million (not counting the cost of the stars).
An experienced line producer can successfully plan for 20 episodes to be produced over the course of 40 weeks, with each particular episode generally taking about a week to shoot.
The more episodes a network commits to up front the better able the studio to control costs by committing production employees.


Nearly all comedies are produced in a soundstage or studio in front of a live audience. Exterior scenes are uncommon. It typically takes about a full Monday to Friday work week to produce an episode, with the writers working on the script the week before shooting, and post production requiring a week after shooting to edit the show together.
A sit-com can usually be licensed to a network for $500,000 - $700,000 including casting, as long as there are no big stars attached. The six big stars of Friends eventually made $1 million each per episode, and NBC agreed to pay $10 million per episode for license.

In general, reality shows cost less to produce then dramas but most often are a poor long term investment. A successful network drama can continue to produce revenues in syndication and on cable while reality shows have far less value in secondary markets. In the short term however, if they produce ratings can become very profitable. High ratings equal high advertising rates and reality shows are also funded by product placement.
Big Brother on CBS reportedly costs only $300,000 per hour, while Survivor costs over $1 million per hour.

Once an order has gone in for a show a high level production schedule needs to be set. For prime time shows in general it will be one week to produce one episode. You should leave yourself at least two weeks between wrapping production for an episode and its air date. This gives time for post production, reshooting scenes, standards and practices review, prodcution of promos, and a window in case anything goes wrong. On the other hand the longer the period between wrap and air date the less responsive you can be to changes that might boost the ratings.

From the actors and staff point of view they probably would not like a staggered schedule, one week on, one week off, etc, and would prefer a stretch of no more then 8 weeks in a row of shooting before getting a week or two off.
Generally a break is required for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday weeks.

Once a show is wrapped, we expect the final episode guide to be posted and generally no changes are allowed after that point. This is to reflect the window of opportunity to change based on market information having expired. You are stuck with what is in the can.

So for example your production schedule would be as simple as this;

ep. # shooting air date
1.01 Aug 3 - 7 2009 Sep 8 2009
1.02 Aug 10 - 14 2009 Sep 15 2009

etc...

The network expects a production schedule to be set for at least the first half of the year within weeks of committing to the order.

[George WK Newman]

8) Show episode guides

Each show should have four things.

1) A title (e.g. "Chuck versus the Network" or "The One About the Sandwhich")

2) An episode number, starting with the season, followed by the episode number in that season (1.01, 1.22, 2.01, 2.05)

3) A short description. I would call it the TV guide description but its not quite that short. Should be 4 to 6 lines long on the message board.

4) Episode guide. Shouldn't be so huge that it turns people off reading but is an opportunity to show your writing skills and build depth for your show. Technically you don't need an episode guide write-up you can go with just the short description. However, episode guides will likely increase your ratings; its extremely unlikely they will do anything but help. Anywhere from 20-100 lines, like a half page to full page of screen. The better the quality the better the ratings. A lot of the other stuff that goes into ratings like promos and the hook are the "sizzle", the write-ups are the "steak" and have a large part of your ability to maintain your viewers while looking for new viewers. If your show is all sizzle and no steak its likely you will churn through viewers, losing them as fast as you gain, until sooner or later your numbers start to go down. The episode guides are your shows "legs" and "word of mouth". They are how you turn a show like Seinfeld or Friends that did not get great ratings right out of the gate into ratings stars.

Being Late
We expect the information to be posted within a couple days of wrapping your production for that episode. You can post it early if you like since they are based on the scripts and not on the action being shot. However, once we get past a couple days after wrap, if you edit it then your ratings will be punished. If you post late, its better then not posting at all, but again it will be seen as a sloppy week of production and infer that the actual show's quality suffers. That particular episode's ratings might not suffer that much but if it happens often then it will drag down ratings. On the other hand, consistently producing on time will reflect that your production was well run, and that should help ratings.
If you need to edit something after the wrap date you might want to let the admin know what you are changing in case it is something trivial like a typo.

[George WK Newman]

9) Ratings

The ratings system is explained elsewhere on the board.

You should keep a post with just the episode names and numbers and then edit that post to add the ratings once they are released. This is better then going into your episode posts and editing them after which is a no-no.

[George WK Newman]

10) Profit/Loss

On the corporate section we will keep track of the profit/loss for each show and update when required; monthly or quarterly. It will also break down much of the info including license fee, advertising costs, advertising revenue. You are free to copy this info to your show's page/board, but for ease of use we will release this info in a centralized spot on the corporate section.

Profit/loss is very important to the corporation, but not as much to the show or the affiliates. For instance a show's hands may be tied because the network opted to sell much of its ads at a lower price at the upfronts and then couldn't capitalize when ratings went higher then expected. Or the show could be hamstrung by its timeslot such as Friday night at 8:00pm or Sunday at 7:00pm.

Ratings are more important to the show because they are a better indicator of future renewal and future finances. The corporation when deciding on renewals also focuses on the future, but its the future profit/loss they care about.

The affiliates on the othe hand don't care about the profit/loss as long as the network doesn't go bankrupt. The higher the ratings the more the affiliates can charge for their 3 minutes per hour of time. They would rather see a show that costs $2million per episode and breaks even, then a show that costs $1million per episode and makes a $500,000 profit.

In the long run the shows profit/loss are rolled up and added/subtracted from the network's overhead to come up with a network profit/loss. The better this figure the more money the network will find at its disposal to create new and better shows.

But also in the long run the higher the ratings, the more people get trained to check the network's affiliates, the more traction it creates for lead-ins and network promos. So again there is a trade off between profits and ratings.

[George WK Newman]

11) Future Revenues

Based on the show's contract with the studio there may be future revenue sharing on DVD sales, syndication, foreign markets, computer downloads, toys, video games, etc, etc.

Initially our network will be hard pressed to have much leverage to insist on future revenue sharing, and to do so would likely require a bigger license fee upfront, which we may want to minimize.

While future revenues may be from time to time estimated, they are not actually booked until legally owed to the network.

[George WK Newman]

Casting

Packaging; Programmers generally require a package, a collection of key assets that differentiate one propery from another. The concept of the project is of course paramount, but the key performers, the producer, and the story line are also closely related to the concept and how it will be executed.

Many if not all of the comedies and dramas seen on prime time network television are the result of packaging by a top talent agency such as the William Morris Agency.

Beyond a packaging fee of between 3-5%, the agency also usually negotiates 5-10% of syndication proceeds, plus a few additional points in profit participation. Performers and key producers/writers also share in adjusted net profits.

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Negotiations with cast members can start at any time during this process.
A request to sign a cast member can be put in on the casting board. It is best to put seveal requests in at one time for a show, not one at a time.
The actor may turn down the project either because they are too expensive for the network, or they have other projects on the go. Take a look at their imdb.com page and see what they are currently filming and what other projects they have committed to doing.
If approved in some cases, depending on where you are in the development cycle of the show, it may increase the licensing fee.
Generally all talent is locked into a contract for 5 years although there are general provisions to increase their salaries if ratings increase. We won't break down all the details of the contract, but will take note of which ones do have provisions for increased salary. Generally these would be the established stars. They will also likely have profit participation but unless we own the studio (and currently we do not own any) then this becomes a cost to the studio not us.