Television executives think it’s time for distributors to help their producing partners stay in business, as painful Hollywood contraction puts some of the key players in the TV marketplace at risk.
The bursting of the entertainment industry’s Peak TV bubble in 2022 brought a 37% slashing of the number of scripted TV series ordered by U.S. distributors in the last three years. The rise of Netflix and other streaming platforms as the power players in distribution also made mutually beneficial partnerships through licensing agreements and syndication less lucrative. That means fewer revenue streams for the producers who bring your favorite shows to life.
It’s why production companies like J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot are downsizing — there’s just not as much money to make in TV production these days.
“I would like to think we can get to a place where streamers, distributors and networks want to see their producing partners make money,” said Howard T. Owens, founder and co-CEO of Propagate Content. “A lot of our colleagues have been squeezed out of the biz because you still need to make a living. Distributors need to remember that … They’re dependent on us, so they should want to see us stay in business and hopefully succeed and thrive.”
In a post-Peak TV market marked by shrinking slates, bruised balance sheets and political backlash to DEI, getting a show greenlit in 2026 can feel like threading a needle in the dark. That’s exactly what a group of top producers and executives — including Owens, Berlanti Productions and Berlanti Schechter Films’ Chairwoman and Partner Sarah Schechter, Hello Sunshine film and TV President Lauren Neustadter, Simpson Street Production and Development EVP Pilar Savone, and Fox Entertainment Studios EVP and head of scripted Hannah Pillemer — aimed to unpack during TheWrap’s first Trade Secrets roundtable on TV greenlights.
Over the course of nearly an hour, they offered a candid look at what it now takes to sell a series, who’s getting left behind, and why, even as AI creeps into the process, the business still lives or dies on human taste.
Below are some more highlights from the conversation:
Pitches must be undeniable
Much like the streaming and network executives who spoke with TheWrap for the inaugural Trade Secrets story on TV greenlighting, representatives from some of the most prolific scripted television suppliers said that having a clear and specific idea is key, along with finding the right combination of writers, producers, studio and network executives to push it forward to production.
“The word that we hear the most is ‘undeniable.’ People are looking for content that is undeniable,” Neustadter said.
Sometimes that comes from a show being based on a very successful book or piece of IP, sometimes it’s a writer that a buyer has been dying to work with, and most of the time it comes from the combination of those elements into a package platforms can’t help but buy.
Big packages — a pitch with a clear premise, a solid script from a good writer and often a well-known actor attached — can attract interest faster, but also face a higher bar than a pitch for development, as buyers need to see a clear path to production before granting that green light.
And even the most high‑concept idea can die on contact if the characters feel generic. Savone noted that in 2026’s Hollywood, relatability is currency: Buyers and viewers want to see characters who feel specific and lived‑in, yet emotionally accessible.
If there was one point the panel kept circling back to, it was the importance of finding the right writer. IP may open doors, but Schechter emphasized that in a straight‑to‑series world, the wrong writer can sink even the flashiest package.
Pitch the path to production
For Pillemer, a studio executive at Fox Entertainment, a clever logline or big name is no longer enough. Buyers want to see that producers already did the hard math on how their series would actually get produced financially and creatively.
“Yes, you can have the big idea, but if you can also show how you’re going to actually make it, that gives you an advantage,” she said.
Fox Entertainment Studios has been leaning on creators with established fandoms, like when it set a first-look producing deal with Bill Burr, to incorporate concepts into an offer that can’t be refused.
The studio is also not afraid to take creative swings. Fox Entertainment Studios and Owens’ Propagate teamed up for hour-long comedy series “Best Medicine” at Fox, an American reimagining of the U.K. series “Doc Martin.” After searching for a buyer for nearly 20 years, Owens credited Fox Entertainment CEO Rob Wade for seeing the value in retooling the 2000s-era medical series for an American audience.
“We were learning as we were going, and just stayed in lockstep with each other the whole time … and I feel like the proof is in the pudding with how beautiful the show came together and the way the audience has really responded [to it],” Pillemer said.
The show was renewed for Season 2 in March.
DEI under pressure
When the conversation shifted toward diversity, the tone shifted. Several panelists pointed to recent success stories, but Schechter refused to sugarcoat how the shrinking TV business is impacting Hollywood’s inclusion progress. She called out the rollback of opportunities for underrepresented voices and stories for what it is: a crisis.
“We have to be honest that it’s a problem and it’s an epidemic,” she said. “In the contraction of programming, the opportunities for people of color, for diverse voices … have gone away. I do think that we have a problem and we have to acknowledge it.”
The retreat has come amid a broader pullback in DEI initiatives across the country and throughout all industries spurred by the Trump administration.
Schechter pointed to NBC’s “Brilliant Minds” — the first broadcast drama series centered on a gay male lead character, which was produced by Berlanti Productions and canceled in May after a two-season run. She also shouted out the long-running Berlanti YA series “All American” on the CW, set around a majority Black cast and ending with its eighth season this summer.
Pillemer called preserving diversity on TV “an obligation” for executives on all sides of the marketplace. Neustadter said that nothing has changed for companies like Hello Sunshine and Simpson Street, which baked in elevating women and underrepresented voices as part of their mission statements.
“Pilar and I became sisters while making ‘Little Fires Everywhere,’ and I believe that show would get bought and made today in the very same way that it did when we sold it and when we made it,” Neustadter said of the 2020 Hulu limited series. “It’s really about making sure that on our side, as we are cultivating material and we’re presenting it to the marketplace, that [championing diverse voices] remains important to us, that’s a really important piece of the puzzle.”
Studio homes vs. the right partners
With less money to spend on content, studio overall deals — partnerships housing production companies and writers within a studio or platform — have fallen out of fashion in some corners. But Schechter and Savone made a compelling case for why being “inside the building” still matters.
Savone noted the benefits of being set with an overall deal at 20th Television, and how hearing directly from studio executives in communication with Disney platforms like Hulu, Disney+ and the diversity-championing content brand Onyx Collective helps inform the best way to tailor their projects accordingly.
Through Berlanti Productions’ longtime overall deal with Warner Bros. Television, Schechter said a pass from one network doesn’t mean the project is dead — it just means you try the next door.
It’s a reminder that in a market obsessed with ownership, leverage often comes from who is backing the project when a buyer hesitates. It’s what happened with CW hit “Riverdale,” which was originally set at Fox before becoming a streaming sensation after landing on post-air distribution on Netflix. And this week, Hulu passed on Berlanti’s pilot for the YA series “Foster Dade,” which Warner Bros. is now shopping to other buyers.
“For me, having a studio, the opportunity of that is that your first no isn’t your last no,” Schechter said. “If you believe in something, you can do more.”
Propagate and Hello Sunshine operate independently, which Owens said helps ensure a project can find the right partner across the marketplace, and find a mutually beneficial partnership that actually makes money and takes advantage of licensing windows.
Neustadter also celebrated the flexibility of independence — while noting the downside that buyers often prefer in-house studio and producer partnerships for their cost-effectiveness.
AI and the human spark
Any conversation about the future of TV in 2026 eventually runs into AI. This one was no exception — but instead of buzzwords and hand‑waving, the room kept circling back to a more grounded question: What’s actually useful and what’s not worth losing in the process?
Neustadter said Hello Sunshine is deliberately taking a “careful and curious” approach. The approach internally is to get educated, ask pointed questions of partners and understand how fast things are moving — without losing sight of the fact that their brand’s center of gravity remains a human writer sharing an emotional experience on screen.
At Propagate, Owens has tested AI for coverage — the collection of footage providing context — on unscripted projects (“three days down to three minutes,” he said.) and helping with budgeting, scheduling and some legal tasks. The efficiencies are clear, but the replacement threat is more complicated.
“We all get paid here for our taste,” Owens said, noting that no one on the panel is actually worried about an algorithm delivering the next “Riverdale” or “Little Fires Everywhere” on its own. What keeps him up is something more old‑fashioned: If assistants and trainees aren’t doing coverage, listening in on calls or sitting in the room where decisions happen, where does the next class of executives and producers come from?
Pillemer echoed that concern. As Fox Entertainment Studios leans into new tools, she said, there’s an active effort to make sure the apprenticeship layer of the business doesn’t disappear in the name of efficiency. Streamlining the process is one thing, cutting off the ladder for younger talent is another.
And then there’s Schechter, who brought the discussion back to why any of this matters beyond workflow.
“The thing that I admire the most is the emotional reaction that [a show] elicits, whether it’s laughter or tears or both,” Schechter said. “I think that’s always going to be the human part you can’t replace.”
That became the quiet consensus across the conversation. AI may find efficiencies in grueling production workflows. But when it comes to taste, mentorship and the emotional hit that gets a show bought — and keeps audiences coming back — nobody on this panel is looking to hand that over to a machine.
Watch TheWrap’s “How to Get a Green Light for Your TV Show” Trade Secrets roundtable in full above.
