The Next Generation of Major Producers May Come From Vertical First

The next generation of major producers may not come from traditional television. They may come from vertical first.

The signals

The format’s producer bench is changing shape. Executives with decades at the top of network television, Lloyd Braun, Susan Rovner, Jana Winograde, have each launched vertical ventures this year. Fox took an equity position in MyDrama. Crazy Maple Studio, which built ReelShort, is now one of the most prolific production companies in the country by title count.

At the same time, producers who began in vertical two years ago are running slates that would be unthinkable in traditional television: a hundred series a year, each shot in a week, each with its own cast and crew.

Why the path is reversing

Traditional television used to be where a producer learned the craft before taking on bigger things. The format offers the opposite: more reps, faster, with direct audience data on every choice. A producer who has shepherded a hundred vertical series into release has made more greenlight decisions than most network executives make in a career.

The executives entering vertical are doing so to learn that velocity, not to retire.

The association’s interest

If the format is becoming the training ground for the industry’s next producers, the standards they learn there will travel. That is the argument for getting the standards right now: pay, conditions, credits and delivery, built into the format’s working culture before that culture becomes everyone’s.