Nathan Varni has an impressive title. Then again, Nathan Varni is an impressive person, juggling the requirements of all the current television shows on ABC TV (part of the Disney Group) to ensure they’re all on TV as scheduled. Varni currently oversees Gray’s Anatomy, Station 19, Rebel, and The Connors.

His role also expands into overseeing the TV shows currently in production and active development. When new shows have four to six produced episodes, they are managed by Varni’s team to develop and produce further episodes. Ensuring the script to screen pipeline is maintained is only part of Varni’s role. “We deal with a host of other departments including marketing, broadcasting standards, scheduling, digital and social media.”

ABC Current Programming also liaises between showrunners and the relevant departments and studio executives. Varni is also in charge of distributing network notes to them regarding their respective shows. “This is normally a collaborative conversation between the showrunners and the studio executives to ensure that the TV show we bought in the beginning is the show we continue to make.” Varni ensures the characters, plots and storylines stay on track with what makes sense for the series.

The team also takes fresh or alternative story pitches, outlines and scripts that showrunners may have. They also look at rough cuts of their TV shows for approval. “It’s essentially like being a project manager.” Occasionally Nathan Varni may offer his thoughts to showrunners or network executives on the direction of a particular show. The writers of long-running shows like Gray’s Anatomy know the characters inside and out, so he might only have a thought or two to contribute. “It’s a well-oiled machine and I just tend to listen to what the writers want to explore. We have a great trust with them.” They rarely dictate stories and prefer to honor the showrunner’s creative vision. The studio may occasionally step in if a storyline doesn’t tonally fit the show.

Nathan Varni

His team’s contribution to newer shows which are still establishing themselves include “finding the right template, tone, and voice.” Newer shows typically have more creative executives onboard – four to six until it finds its stride. “We want to maintain the momentum of the pilot episode throughout the life of the show.”

Varni also ensures dramas run at forty-two minutes and the comedies at twenty-one and a half minutes to allow time for commercials to run.

Problems With New Shows

Bringing a new TV show to air carries an inherent risk. ABC must balance the health of the network with ample time to allow the show to find its audience. “It all stems from the pilot.” If the show doesn’t grow in subsequent episodes and repeats similar storylines, red flags are raised. This has occurred when the show is ordered straight to series based on the pilot. The series engine hasn’t been determined making it difficult to sustain itself over the long term.

“Sometimes we think we’re buying one show and the show creators veer off in a different direction after we shoot the pilot.” Other times, the problems are unforeseen. For instance, the characters aren’t meshing as well as anticipated or the storylines simply aren’t working. “You never want to be in a position where you ask ‘What is the core of this show after the first ten episodes?”

Do you know what your show is? 

The biggest problems occur when the show veers off course without the show’s creator discussing these changes with the network. There are cases of shows course correcting and eventually finding success “after recapturing the magic of the pilot.” Changing storylines for the sake of it unnecessarily wastes time in the production schedule.

Cast Of Gray’s Anatomy. Photo courtesy of ABC TV

Sometimes the notes received from ABC executives and the studio partners don’t align causing a further delay because they can’t agree. “You ultimately have to be on the same page so you don’t unnecessarily confuse and frustrate the showrunner with mixed messages. I make sure my notes don’t contradict the executives’ before I send them back to the showrunner.” It’s imperative that everybody gives, receives and agrees on notes in a timely manner to fit in with tight production schedules of broadcast television.

“Most of our writers have five or six weeks on the writers’ room to break the season. Once you hit week six or seven in the timeline and production and post-production starts, it’s hard to catch up or change course because the production train has left the station.”

Varni admitted that production has shut down in certain critical circumstances to allow the writers time to rethink their episodes and plan for the future. “You use the writers’ room to plan the production logistics and layout of the episodes.”

This is a most peculiar scenario given that so much time is spent on the pilot episode. “If we order a show in August, the pilot is potentially in development for six to ten months. The luxury of time is a key reason for problems because the writers spend all their time developing the pilot episode rather than future episodes. You need to spend time thinking about what your series arc is going to be.” Writers should be thinking about this (even a second season) even if their pilot isn’t picked up to series.

Varni added that the development process was automatically extended during the pandemic when production was shut down. “We paid our writers to write two or three extra episodes during the production downtime.” Another change initiated by the pandemic is that ABC is considering year-round pitching and greenlighting so not all the productions are scrambling for the same facilities, cast and crew in a finite time frame.

Other models such as mini-rooms to work on extra scripts have also been used by ABC. “This pattern is favored because it allows more time to define what the show could be and boosts its chances of success.”

ABC gives its new shows the best chance of success. In the old days, executives would only look at overnight ratings and cancel a show after two or three episodes. “That was brutal. How can a show grow its audience if you take it off the air after three weeks?” With the availability of delayed viewing figures over seven days or longer, they can give a show more breathing space (particularly a new show) to find its stride and grow an audience. Today, we show at least all the seasons we ordered. Aside from delayed viewing figures, they can analyze digital and streaming viewing numbers to get a broader picture of viewing trends. “Some of our shows don’t rate highly on their original air dates and find their audience later on Hulu (which Disney owns) or other platforms. This can grow our numbers by over one hundred percent.” Varni cited How To Get Away With Murder which ran for six seasons as an example of a delayed viewing success.

Development Team

ABC’s development teams are divided into two main camps – 30 minute comedy and 60 minute drama. During a typical pitching season, executives would hear hundreds of pitches over the summer/ fall (usually July to October) although they are increasingly leaning to a year round pitching model. “We buy fifty to seventy scripts in each genre each season and shoot around ten pilots in each genre. From those, we generally greenlight three or four that eventually go to series.”

Annalise Keating (Viola Davis) in How To Get Away With Murder. Photo courtesy of ABC TV

These numbers are also impacted by which current shows are being renewed, cancelled, or “on the bubble.” New shows must compete with current shows and hopefully outperform the outgoing shows. “Often it’s a gamble. You might consider renewing a middle-rating show in the hopes of growing its audience or replace it with a new one.” 

Ratings aren’t the only consideration in deciding the fate of a show. “Sometimes it becomes too expensive to keep on air in relation to its advertising revenue.” Comedies, in particular, have the capacity to be syndicated to offset reduced advertising revenues.

Owning a show by an ABC studio such as ABC signature, as opposed to being co-owned or not-owned, also contributes to the decision to keep a show on air or not.

International sales also contribute to these decisions.

Future Of Broadcasting Networks

ABC is looking for broadcast shows with wide audience appeal while streamers are more focused on niche programming because it relies on an advertising more than a subscription model. “We program for the masses – shows that are universally appealing.”

The broadcast networks are sharing the same ecosystem with the streamers. ABC has adapted to this change in a number of ways. Traditionally, broadcast series would shoot up to twenty-four episodes. Recently, they are more amenable to shorter seasons comprising thirteen episodes. “We’re making decisions based on the genre and whether it’s an open or closed ended show. Can you produce twenty-three episodes or will you burn the audience out?” Broadcasters are more open to anthology or limited series. “Big Sky, was pitched as a limited series from its creator David E. Kelley.”

This flexibility is more attractive to A-list talent because it doesn’t attach them to a show for most of the year. “Viola Davis was only available for How To Get Away With Murder because we allowed her to film fifteen episodes per year.“