Fox is bailing out on pilot season, which network entertainment chief Kevin Reilly says is a relic of an earlier age that no longer serves the creative process.
Reilly made the announcement Monday at the Television Critics Association winter press tour, sitting on stage between two projecting cartoon tombstones with the words “R.I.P. Fox ‘Pilot Season’ 1986-2013.” The announcement makes Fox the first network to abandon what has long been the pipeline for getting new shows on broadcast television.
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The process involves networks ordering pilot scripts through the fall and early winter, deciding which ones to shoot, and then screening them in a flurry to announce in May which ones will become series in the fall and midseason.