Wednesday, August 21, 2013

At Starz-Film Roman

My morning was spent at Starz-Film Roman along Hollywood Way, where a Simpsons director told me:

Nobody has told us, but I think that Fox is going to pick up The Simpsons for the 26th season. And then I think, if they get the voice actors on board, they will go all the way out to 30 seasons and end the program.

And then they'll make two Simpsons features. ...

From his mouth to the viewing public's eyeballs. ...

But one way or the other, Starz-Film Roman has to be mulling over what they're going to be doing after the Yellow Family completes their final half-hours. And by golly, it turns out they are:

Starz's animation house Film Roman is making a push into developing its own original animated programming.

The Burbank-based company, best known for its work-for-hire animation on The Simpsons, Beavis & Butt-Head and King of the Hill, has optioned several original ideas that it is developing.

Led by general manager and head of production Dana Booton, the unit of Starz has made a substantial, but undisclosed investment into an effort to produce and distribute original programming.

The initiative comes at a time when Starz, which John Malone's Liberty Media spun off as a separately traded company in January, has also focused on developing more original programming for its premium TV service. ...

The marketplace is a lot tougher now than when H-B developed shows and licensed them to the networks, because the networks couldn't own programs outright. In today's corporatist state, monopoly is a pleasing rather than a dirty word, and vertical integration, with one of our fine, entertainment conglomerates owning programming and distribution top to bottom, is all the rage.

But maybe there's still a place for the smaller players to develop good work and get it on the air. We certainly hope so.

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