Pilot Season 2025 Forecast: Drought With A Chance Of Few Orders In Broadcast TV’s New Normal

deadline.com:

To pilot or not to pilot has been a question broadcast networks have been asking themselves for more than a decade and are increasingly answering ‘no’ to, especially when it comes to the traditional pilot season in the months leading to the May upfronts.

We haven’t gotten a single pilot order in 2025 so far. While that is about to change with a handful of orders coming up, the pilot drought has been persistent amid an industry contraction and linear viewing decline, especially as the networks are still dealing with the backlog caused by strike-related delays.

Broadcasters these days often opt for economically efficient planted spinoffs that shoot as regular episodes of existing drama and comedy series or for development rooms and straight-to-series orders, primarily on the drama side.

That is ironic because the biggest new drama hits of the last two seasons, CBS‘ Tracker and Matlock and ABC‘s High Potential, all originated as standalone pilots.