Probably the second most popular question I am asked at every Show Starter™ seminar or private session is "How do I come up with a budget for my show?"  The answer is so detailed that we are publishing a separate book in this series to fully address budgeting and scheduling for reality TV.  And the process is so detailed that my company soon will release a dedicated software program to automate it since the reality TV production model is so different from the fiction TV and theatrical models current software applications serve.

Right now you are thinking, "Another book!  New software?  My pitch meeting is next week!"  Not to worry.  What you need to know about budgeting and scheduling for the pitch phase is far simpler than what you need for development and production.  That is what we are going to address now.

In the course of creating your show, you will go through three phases of budgets.  The first is your "ballpark budget."  This is not so much a line item budget as it is a practical estimate of what it will cost to produce your show.  An

example of a "ballpark budget" figure is "$85,000 an episode."

 

 

Your ballpark budget number lets the network know if your show fits into their budgetary guidelines for reality programming.  Smaller cable nets are generally looking for half-hour programming in the $60,000-$150,000/episode range and hour-long programming that is no more than $250,000.  At the opposite end of the spectrum, the bigger broadcast nets can often budget shows in the $500,000-$1 million/episode range.  But they still would be thrilled to get dynamite shows that fit their brand but cost much less (and can increase their profit margin)! 

It is important to research what the budget parameters are for a network before you meet with them so you can pitch shows that they realistically can afford to buy.  This makes you look that much more professional in your meetings.  If you do not have an agent to get you that information, keep an eye on the trades for any numbers on recent network sales.  And if all else fails, when you finally set up a pitch meeting, directly ask the network what budgetary range they are considering right now for new series in your show’s genre. 

Do not ever simply invent a fake a number you cannot back up in a pitch.  Part of the network’s question about your episodic budget absolutely is a test of how much you know about this business and what it costs to make a show.  Believe me, they will be able to tell from your pitch approximately how much it will budget out at–so your "Jedi mind trick" is to get within a "ballpark range" of that number.  We will talk about how you arrive at the figure in one moment.

To wrap up how show budgets progress, your second phase of budgetary bliss launches if your pitch sparks interest at the network level.  If so, you will begin cranking out "development budgets."  Sometimes you will be paid a small development fee for this; many times, the network will request these for free just to continue considering your show.  Until you have a relationship and track record with a network, it will be fairly difficult to get off of the "free budget" circuit.  And if the show goes into actual development, you often will have to prepare additional budgets for each revised format you and the net execs create. These budgets are fully fleshed out, line item budgets that you will need vendor relationships, staffing rates and solid quotes for. 

Finally, the third phase begins once the show is sold, when you will start the march towards the final budget for the show.  The final budget is key because it establishes the overall "license fee" the network is going to pay the production company to make the show.  That figure generally determines what "production fee" or "EP Fee" (for "Executive Producer") the company retains as payment for their services–which is where your payment, if there is one, probably will come from.

Let’s return now to step one in the budget-making process, which is estimating your ballpark episodic budget.  Now for the surprise insider’s tip.  The biggest mistake people make is trying to first create a budget then next develop a schedule that fits that number.  The simple approach is, instead, to rough out a schedule for producing your show based on its logistical requirements, then devise a budget that supports that schedule.  This is where the elements of your treatment will serve and save you.

If you want a reliable ballpark number for your show, your best bet is to hire an experienced reality TV line producer, ideally from your show’s genre, to review your treatment and crunch a number for you.  Hello, seed money!  This should not cost more than a few hundred dollars, and you might get some valuable tips from them on how to tweak your treatment and save a bundle in production costs.  Tempting as it is, do not go to your friend the film or fiction TV line producer; their production models are different and far costlier than streamlined reality set-ups.

The following are some main treatment elements that will help you and your line producer ballpark a budget. I recommend taking a highlighter and a pen and "breaking down" your treatment on the page for any of these areas that scream "ka-ching!":

 

•     Show ‘Specs’

 

Production Schedule:  Start with your pre-production phase, which is when you prepare your show to actually be shot.  Does your show require, for example, extensive: location searches or design; intellectual property clearance; or casting efforts?  Talent competitions, for instance, require all three, given the dramatic staging to be built, pop music to clear and performers to audition and select.  Any "pre-pro" staff for your show will need to be paid and insured, and travel expenses and materials for a casting team and shooters also might be involved. 

Next, once your show is in production, about how many days will it take to shoot everything for each episode?  Remember, field expenses for staff, cast and crew rack up for each ten-hour shoot day.  To ballpark this, start by counting how many locations you will shoot for the episode.  Then, at each of those locations, count how many "set-ups," or separately lit and prepped areas, you will need to shoot.  Remember that unlike film, reality usually shoots in the actual order that events take place, so each progressive step of your show often means a new set-up or location. 

Here are some rules of thumb to estimate your shooting schedule.  One shoot day will accommodate either:

1)    Two locations in the same city with no more than two set-ups at each location. Your locations should be within a half-hour drive of each other, allowing for rush hour.  You can add a "run-and-gun" third location only if you are paying an experienced team, the location is in the same immediate vicinity of a main location and it would not require a lighting set-up.  So for a makeover show, you might schedule a clothes fitting and a make-up session in one day, plus an exterior diary session to shoot feedback from your subject.  (Hair is a challenging, long process for female subjects, so that is automatically going to roll you into day two.) 

For you non-reality vets, if you do not understand why you should not schedule more than two locations a day, take a break from this book to spend a day in the trenches on a reality show and watch how much time it takes to set up, shoot, strike and relocate a cast and crew.

- or -

2)    Three set-ups in one location. That means the same house, office, etc.  Remember, every time cameras reposition to a new room or area and lights come down and go back up, you have a new set-up.  So for instance, on Club Darwin, we have one location, the casino, and five set-ups: the Face-Off, Event #1, Event #2, the Slots, Event #3 and the Awards Ceremony.  We also are shooting wild animals, so leave some room in the schedule.  Our shoot schedule might look like:

 

Day #1: Face-Off 1, Event #1, Face-Off 2 (at the Event #1 location).  We also will need to pay an additional roving team (or mount independent cameras) to permanently cover the Slotty Hotties (another expense!).   

 

Day #2: Event #2, Event #3, Awards Ceremony.  Right now, I bet you are asking yourself, um, wouldn’t it be easier just to spread this out over three days?  Of course!  But it not only would cost even more money than the already skyrocketing chimp control fest, it also would be incredibly hard to convince humans to put up with what literally might be crap for more than a couple of days and stay chipper. 

For those practical reasons, I had to build a budget protector into my format, which was the timer on the three events, to guarantee how long they would last and protect my two-day schedule.  Got it?

Let’s finish up our schedule estimate with the post-production phase of your show.  This determines how many days it will take to edit each episode–especially if there is a lot of footage to condense into a single show.  Many vérité docudramas and makeover shows (over)shoot 100 or more hours an episode then have to condense them into only 45 minutes of story.   That leads to a perennial trade-off in a reality budget–do you add story department staff to meticulously pre-produce the shows and screen the footage and transform transcripts into time-coded show outlines (called "paper cuts") for the editors?  Or do you keep the story department lean and assign the burden to your editors to filter the footage and carve out story? 

Here is a hint.  I am not saying the storylines of many reality shows are not cut in the editing bays. I am saying if you plan to do that, you might as well burn five hundred dollar bills for kicks.  My advice?  Jam-pack your story department staff.

 

•     Genre and Category

 

Competitive formats require additional money to develop games (in fact, they hire an actual staff to do that), and they usually include a cash payout or prizes that must be included in your budget.  Vérité shows, as we just discussed, shoot an extraordinary amount of footage and require more staff and long editing hours, which affects your budget.  Makeover shows need products and services, which you will not always be able (or allowed by the network) to get for free (more on products in a later section!).  And it should be no surprise that sports, gaming and travel shows can easily dramatically increase insurance costs.  What are the special needs of your genre and category that might trigger higher expenses? 

With Club Darwin, for instance, both the gambling component (which is heavily regulated by the government and network game show guidelines) and the animal presence (which is heavily regulated by too many institutions to mention, including the ASPCA and the Health Department) will dramatically drive up the legal, staffing and insurance areas of my estimated budget. 

Whatever factors in your format affect costs, remember you cannot jeopardize story and stakes just to bring down your budget…no matter what your line producer says.   No one was going to duke it out for weeks on a desert island for 10 bucks, and The Bachelorette was not going to work in a cramped fifth-floor walk-up in the meat-packing district!  They had to bite the financial bullet and include that mansion in the budget estimate, or story would have been compromised. 

 

•     Episode Duration

 

Producing a half-hour show can be just as costly as producing an hour-long version of the same show–but networks do not pay the same fee for both!  You will be expected to bring your numbers down for a half-hour show, so be sure to craft episodes that are streamlined enough to be shot in less time.  Shortened field production (and the resulting shorter post-production) is where you can trim easy money in half-hour shows. 

To keep Club Darwin affordable, you will remember I set a timer on the events to limit my shoot days.  Creating such a tightly controlled shoot experience also guaranteed the distraction of wild animals on set would be the only unexpected part of the day that could seriously jeopardize our schedule.

 

•     Frequency

 

Remember that ballpark numbers are per episode estimates, whether your show will air once, daily, bi-weekly, or weekly.  How frequently a show can air is determined not just by how many days it takes to shoot an episode, but how many days it takes to turn around production and begin shooting the next episode.  If multiple episodes can shoot at the same time, that eliminates turnaround, but it hikes up staff and crew costs for separate teams to oversee independent production processes.  Your budget trade off here is between paying more overall production costs for a longer shoot schedule with safe turnaround time between episodes or paying more concentrated costs for episodes to overlap throughout production.

 

•     Series/Season Duration

 

Specials and one-offs can be incredibly costly since they share many of the start-up, production, post and final delivery requirements of a full series order.  The more episodes you have in your series, the lower your ballpark number can be because you will be able to spread fixed production costs out over considerably more time, or "amortize" them.  Club Darwin would be ludicrously costly for a special, however entertaining; the animal handling and insurance costs nearly mandate a long episode order.  But your show itself must warrant a longer order, based on its story and casting potential, before you can up the episode count.

 

•     Episodic Format

 

"Stand-alone" and "segment-based" episodes have heavier casting and field production needs (to feed the story machine that changes every episode), so keep casting and location demands lean in your treatment.  That means you cannot whittle forty carpentry hunks down to four at the top of every half-hour home design episode! 

"Arcing" episodes tip the budget in maintenance fees for the cast you must take care of over multiple weeks, as well as hidden costs, like the medical and psychological evaluations, security clearances and follow-up counseling you might need to provide before you let strangers move into a house with each other.  

To save costs on Club Darwin, it would be critical to cast one set of animals and pay them out over the series, rather than try to cast new monkeys every week.  It would be cheaper to pay off the same group of gamblers, too, but that would hurt story too dramatically.  The ballpark has to go up for that–especially since we need to hunt for gamblers who will willingly compete against soup-pelting animals (that is a big casting cost!).

 

•     Hosts, Talent and Cast

 

Apart from adding potential union fees, hosts and talent add weekly salaries and maintenance to your budget–as well as agent fees ("plus-tens") if you do not have an alert attorney. More than one host or central talent for your show also requires a dedicated talent wrangler to streamline contact, scheduling, access and publicity demands.  Club Darwin has a huge potential expense in multiple animal trainer fees, as well as fees for each and every animal on set.

 

•     Shooting Format

 

Your choice of camera and media clearly affects costs for the show.  Shooting on DV-cams versus HD, or HDV versus Beta, is a style choice as well as a budgetary one.  Media format also might be mandated by the network; for example, some nets require HD delivery to conform to future format requirements (and some provide the equipment and post facilities to facilitate that–which means you do not get those funds for your budget). 

How extensively the show is shot also dictates a big portion of the budget.  Are you loading sixty cameras into a house and directing and monitoring them around-the-clock?  That is equipment, insurance and staffing overload!  Or are you taking two basic camera and audio ("ENG") teams into people’s homes to shoot them?  That adds potential travel, insurance and personally owned equipment or "kit" fees to your estimate. 

 

•     Union or Non-Union

 

In general, producers usually budget every show for non-union and battle to make sure the network assumes the difference in costs if it goes union.  Club Darwin would have its own additional institutional costs due to required ASPCA monitors and guidelines to protect animals on sets.

 

•     Special Needs

 

Will special product and service needs for your particular show affect overall production or even certain episodes?  On a home improvement show, this might include building permits and contractor’s insurance, beyond materials for actually transforming the location.  Or, for example, in Club Darwin, this would include feeding, caging and the Health Code-regulated cleaning up after at least a dozen monkeys… who like to fling pea soup.  Ka-ching!

 

•     The Target Location/Lifestyle

 

There are three different location options for your show, all of which affect your budget differently:

1)    Your first option is to establish one or more fixed show locations and bring all of your subjects to them (like Starting Over).  This gives you ultimate control over your shoot but generates heavier upfront costs for location fees, insurance and set design.  Still, these you can amortize over the duration of a multi-episode order. 

This is, in fact, Club Darwin’s one budgetary saving grace, that monkey and man taking over a single casino actually drives story.  Technically, we are "caging" the humans in a dimly lit, oxygen-pumped, screeching-monkey-filled casino.  The humans will not be allowed to leave. They will gamble with monkeys, stay in luxury rooms on the same floor as monkeys, be served drinks and snacks by monkeys.  Imagine how they will feel the day they are released–final diary will be fantastic!

2)    Your second option is to send crews to your subjects’ locations to film them in their natural habitats (like Clean Sweep).  Here your budget will take a hit due to having to hire and travel in-house crew in order to guarantee a uniform and professional feel for the show.  Or it could spike due to the possibility of having to re-shoot footage shot by remote crews who are not as experienced or familiar with your show, or due to being held hostage by last-minute location fees (if you did not get your releases signed in advance) or by sites that magically fall through the day of a remote shoot and must be rescheduled on the fly.  

3)    Your third option is to plan for a mix of fixed and field locations (like Little People, Big World).  Of course, as soon as you shoot for multiple locations, you run the risk of "busting the schedule" due to relocation snags.  That means you will need budget protection for overtime and additional shoot days.  But it also means a more interesting visual experience for your show, which is why most shows shoot at multiple locations.

So is there a clever (and cost-efficient) way to make one location feel like many for your show?  On a makeover show my company produced, we took over a two-story downtown loft and designed every room to be a stand-alone set that drove story.  Because we pre-lit every space during set design, we were able to shoot three locations day one and four locations on day two, shaving a full day off of the production schedule.  That mattered for two reasons.  First, obviously, it amounted to 13 fewer days of production, a huge budget decrease.

Second, and emphatically once again, all budget considerations simply must be weighed against story considerations.  Makeover shows are exhausting, and it is incredibly difficult to sustain your subject’s interest and enthusiasm going into day three and four.  We chose to increase the budget to account for keeping dozens of lights mounted throughout all the months of production, but it was far cheaper than staffing an additional day of production and paying location and permit fees so we could relocate around the city.  And our subjects stayed committed and enthusiastic for the days we were shooting.

 

•     Brand Integration Possibilities

 

It is terrific to identify any branding possibilities that will enhance the show.  What you do not want to do is pre-sell a product integration agreement before you begin pitching or even assume that free or paid product placements will automatically offset your budget.  Sadly, your ballpark numbers cannot reflect potential product integration income.  Let me explain.

Brand integration is a far trickier area than most people realize unless they own a production company that has integrated brands before.  Let me please debunk the many myths behind the "mother lode" windfalls of placing products on your show.

Remember first how money flows through production companies.  Advertisers give moneys to networks, thanks to the efforts of network Ad Sales departments.  See the second word in that department title?  That’s right, Ad "Sales" reps work on commission, just like any other sales person.  That means that they have a vested interest in controlling any ad money that comes into the network. 

It is very common for newcomers to seek product integration partners to finance their shows before they ever get to a network to pitch.  They feel that if their show already is paid for, why would a network not jump at the chance to air it?  Here is why. 

1)    The network might not jump at the show because your contract with the product integration partner gives that company way too much say over the content of the show–which may conflict with the network’s programming vision;

2)    The network might not jump at your show because that particular partner conflicts with other ad deals in the time slot that is right for your show; or

3)    The network might not jump at your show because Ad Sales is irked that you have bypassed their position in the network’s infrastructure process and possibly wiped out a potential commission.

Of course, a network may be thrilled if the product partnership is organic and the integration deal language works for them.  But that is an enormous risk to take!  At most, for your first show, consider researching product partners who will confirm interest in your show without needing a signed attachment to it.  This is almost impossible, by the way, since most product companies want to see your network deal before they will consider integrating merchandise into your series. So for a pitch, just make suggestions for integrations and move on.

One final surprise in the brand integration arena.  The days of production companies owning or even participating in the money that manufacturers often pay to be featured in shows are over, over, over.  Powerful production companies might negotiate some piece of this still.  But many production companies never see any of the money for brands that Ad Sales place in their shows.  In fact, the network does not even have to channel any of the money those integrations generate back to the show to offset costs!  So for all of the work the show’s staff has to do to meet the demands of those product contracts, the show itself will not necessarily benefit. 

Brand integration dollars cannot figure into your ballpark budget on a first show.  Further down the road, when you have some more production clout, this could be a different story!

 

•     Format sales, spin-offs and ancillary products

 

Strike any idea of including this kind of money as a budgetary offset.  This is all "back-end" income, which you may or may not get a piece of but will not count towards the actual cost of producing your show.

 

•     Anything else that matters

 

Like that one?  This is the hardest area to pinpoint and estimate costs for if you have never worked in reality TV and, especially, if you are not a show runner or line producer who has overseen and protected a real budget.  But by now, your treatment should be filled with highlighter color and notes.  Just take a look at the clean areas.  Are you sure those elements of the show can be done for no considerable additional costs, as in no extra staff, shoot days, insurance, equipment, travel, etc.?

 

Ballparking Your Show

Okay, you have taken a pass at analyzing the elements of your own treatment that you will need to research or rewrite to ballpark your budget.  Because these elements are so show-specific, no one can give you a firm figure for what your type of show is going to cost in general.  But I am going to present two useful tools you can move forward with.

For your first tool, here are some base numbers for you to begin with then adjust your ballpark according to your treatment notes.  Again, your show’s particular special elements–for instance, nude pyrotechnics in your final act–can quickly boot you into a different range:

 

$65,000-$100,000/episode

You are shooting a non-union, half-hour, weekly, vérité series with DV or HDV cams.

You are shooting no more than three locations an episode, all in the same city, with any additional locations shooting as exteriors (each location after the first one moves you closer to the higher end of the range).

You have no separate host and only one central talent and one subject per episode. 

You will need no more than two ENG crews a day for the shoot, and you will shoot no more than two days an episode.

Your format is absolutely fixed for every episode; only the subjects are changing. 

Children and animals are not part of your show. 

Luxury lifestyle trappings are not a part of your show format. 

Your target market is small cable nets (like Fox Reality or Fit TV).

 

$100,000-$250,000 episode

You are shooting the same show above, but it could also be an hour-long format, a segment show, or a competitive format with a small ($50,000) prize. 

You require up to five locations (not "cities"; locations) each episode, three of which are distinct interiors.  Each location after the second moves you to the higher end of the range. 

You have at least two subjects and a host or central talent who are new to the industry (or eager to do the show). 

You might have one luxury component that you must budget around (even though this ultimately may be sponsored). 

Children or animals may be part of the show but only in supporting roles and not as the main focus of the episodes (unless your central talent truly is the definitive "[fill-in-the-blank] Whisperer").

Your target market is small cable nets for hour-longs or power cable nets for half-hours (like Bravo or TLC). 

 

$250,000-$500,000/episode

You are shooting an hour-long, weekly or competitive or vérité format on DV, HDV or Beta, with multiple locations and/or physical domestic U.S. travel in each episode or a heavily designed permanent studio set. 

You are offering substantial combined cash prizes ($250,000+) for competition winners. 

You have a recognizable host and/or bankable central cast members who drive the show and will not negotiate lower fees. 

There are multiple subjects in each episode but still five or fewer.   You have more than three full ENG crews plus, possibly, additional mounted cameras. 

You have multiple, varying locations every episode, and lighting is crucial to the look of your show. 

You might need to clear at least one intellectual property each episode (songs, film or TV clips, etc.). 

Multiple luxury components are included. 

Your target market is the top end of power cable programming or the low-to-medium needs of broadcast nets.

 

More than $500,000/episode

You are shooting a prime-time, union, hour-long, probably competitive format with major combined cash prizes ($500,000+). 

There is a high-end studio set with multi-cam shooting, and/or extensive travel, including international, in each episode.

You have a cast of thousands (in reality, that means five or more main people) with multiple story lines to develop, track and shoot every episode in multiple locations.

 You have one or more celebrity hosts or central cast members. 

You clear multiple intellectual properties (songs, film or TV clips, etc.) every episode. 

Your target market is the broadcast nets or a power cable net ready to back a break-out show.

 

By studying the above information, you should be able to analyze your own treatment, make some big ticket phone calls (e.g., to price out the private jet plane that is central to your story) and devise some more realistic numbers.  You also should be able to better explain those numbers if a net exec questions them in your pitch meeting.

If you still are not comfortable committing to your ballpark budget, here is the second tool that we are offering our online group members.  Show Starter™ has established a "Hot List" of line producer referrals who will generate ballparks, budgets and schedules for you for reasonable fees.  To access the Line Producer Hot List, please visit the Show Starter™ online group site.

Your Show File should now have up to 12 items:

 

SHOW FILE

•  Pitch Database

•  Five Key Pitch Elements

•  Reality TV Research

•  Logline (draft)

•  One-Sheet (draft)

•  Partnership Deal Memo

•  Talent Agreement

•  Talent Reel

•  Treatment

•  Registration applications (and final forms)

•  Sizzle Reel (only if absolutely necessary!)

•  Budget and Schedule Notes

 

You now have a logline, one-sheet, treatment and ballpark budget range for your pitch.  You are almost ready for your pitch meeting!  The last step is to structure the pitch itself and practice, practice, practice it with and without your talent (depending on how you assessed their contribution in the prior chapter).  That is because when you go to a pitch meeting, you are not just selling your show.  You are selling yourself and the experience it will be to work with you.  You cannot control how an exec will respond to your pitch, but you do control what you bring in and must make it as professional and powerful as possible.  

Are you ready for the final stage of your pitch prep?  Turn the page.   

 

"REALITY CHECK"

 

P	Pledge #4:  I will consult with a seasoned reality TV line producer to break down and revise my treatment for a reliable episodic budget estimate.