I 'pitched' an idea to a tv production company...

[IntergalacticHussy]

i just did it off the cuff, on a whim, as it were and via email so the chances of getting a positive response are incredibly slim.

Trouble is, i've now had an email back from them which i know is a rejection, but i'm scared to open it. How daft am i?

Can someone hold my hand please? pretty please?

[AitchTwoOh]

[AitchTwoOh]

and plenty more fish in sea and all that.

[IntergalacticHussy]

oh thank you aitch, i thought i'd be sat here shaking like a leaf all morning by myself!

[IntergalacticHussy]

ok, here goes....

[AitchTwoOh]

come on then, CLICK

[AitchTwoOh]

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand?

[wordfactory]

Oh c'mon..you never know. It could be good news.

[IntergalacticHussy]

bugger, they only accept ideas from their inhouse team bastards

[IntergalacticHussy]

oh well i suppose it was a bit shit

[AitchTwoOh]

this is intolerable.

[wordfactory]

Well that doesn't mean it's a bad idea...just means you've piched to the wrong place.

So...how to find the right place.

What sort of idea was it?

[AitchTwoOh]

what was thecompany? btw it was thewaitthat was intolerable. not the inhousebastards.

[AitchTwoOh]

something wrong with my space bar there.

[Butterbur]

Nothing ventured, nothing gained etc.

I expect you will need an incredibly thick skin in that world. Plus rejection might not mean your idea is rubbish, but more just not what they are looking for at this time. For example, they might find a particular genre difficult to sell at the moment, or someone else might currently have something too similar already in production, or they may simply have filled all their production slots for the next 18 months or something.

I know nothing of TV production, by the way.

Open that email. Onward and upward.

[wordfactory]

Yes to thick skin being essential in this industry. And tenacity.

An idea is not dead until it has been rejected by a good many people.

[IntergalacticHussy]

It was an idea for the kind of show i hate 'pop star to opera star' that kind of rubbish, but turnign the genre on its head. god knows how i'd find the right place for it, i doubt it exists [sulk]

[wordfactory]

You need to plough through a list of production companies and psort through the ones who do this kind of programme...and pitch to them.

[IntergalacticHussy]

ok, i can do that. just have to give myself a kick up the arse

[Punkatheart]

In theory it is an exciting and brave thing to do. But ideas put verbally or even in an email to a company cannot be copyrighted, so therefore can be stolen. So you need to write out some sort of spec and work on some TV contacts. Twitter is actually an accessible place to start - try and speak to people in that industry. But remember - ideas can be stolen and then a company can simply say that they were already considering a similar idea. This has happened with friends pitching and there can be no proof.

But well done for doing it!