About the Book

When Jeffrey Stepakoff was graduating with an MFA in playwriting, he imagined a life in the New York theater, wearing a beret and smoking clove cigarettes. Writing for the aboob tubea didnat even cross his mind. But he ended up in L.A. in the late 80as, when television writers were experiencing their equivalent of a gold rush. After the billion- dollar syndication of Seinfeld, when studios were paying astronomical amounts of money to writers to create the next "Friends" or "ER," the sudden mania for scripted entertainment made the TV writer a hot commodity. He found himself meeting with big agents, inside primetime story rooms, pitch meetings, and on the set of some of TVs most popular shows, and making more money than head ever thought possible.
Weaving his personal story with televisionas, Stepakoff takes us behind the scenes to show what itas like to have a story idea one week and see it come to life and be seen by millions of people just a week later. Stepakoff also takes us inside the industry to explain what weare watching and why by exploring the growing problems of media consolidation, the effects of interference from executives, the lack of diversity, and what reality television is doing to quality scripted television.
When the market crashed and the dust settled, TV executives and the media conglomerates they worked for were sitting on a broken business model. Slowly, a new programming idea began to take holdawhat if the writer and their salaries were removed from the equation? Reality TV was born and the TV writer suddenly became obsoletea at least temporarily.

Product Details

Media: Hardcover Book, 323 pages

Language: English

Publisher: Gotham Books

ISBN-10: 159240295X

ISBN-13: 9781592402953

Dimensions: 6.32 x 9.24 x 1.08 inches

Shipping Weight: 1.14 lbs

• Categories: Television History & Television Criticism