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The pilot system in television is utterly broken. It's a huge waste of money.

I think you have to do certain things in the pilot to get your network's attention - to break through... So maybe you push a little further in the first show.

The pilot is a sales tool; it introduces you to the characters and might set the template for what the show is meant to be, but there's so many boxes you have to check off on a pilot that it can sort of hurt the storytelling in a way.

Networks are reluctant to take a chance. They put on shows that they know will work on some level, but to get the innovative show, it's very difficult.

There's this funny thing with pilots that you have to sign the contract to do the whole job before you're even offered the part. And they make about a million pilots a year, but hardly any of them get turned into series.

I feel like if we can use the combination of basically data-driven hunches and bet on really first-class talent to deliver the shows, that I think we could do as well as the networks do, who basically have a 75 to 80 percent failure rate for new shows anyway - even after all that development and pilot work.

There are only a few TV networks that really invest in production in the way that I think they should. HBO, obviously, is one of them.

As I slowly managed to take what I had learned into a transition from contestant to announcer and warm-up, I first had to prove myself on pilots. And as you know, many pilots are taped for each show that is lucky enough to breakthrough to being a series.

There are certain economics involved in making a network TV show that you want to amortize the costs of that, so the more episodes you make, the cheaper they all are individually.

I don't think people realize the extent to which TV networks are hurt when they carry public broadcasting. I think the estimate is that they lose a half-million dollars for a half day's programming.