‘The Challenge’ of Managing Unscripted TV Franchises with Julie Pizzi
variety.comAndrew Wallenstein President and Chief Media Analyst “The Challenge” and “Below Deck” aren’t mere TV shows; they’re practically the unscripted-TV version of cinematic universes, spanning multiple series that run for many years.
Which is a challenge in its own right for Julie Pizzi, who produces those franchises as president of Bunim/Murray and 51 Minds, two different production companies owned by French media giant Banijay. “Betting on unscripted is a great bet because unscripted has a great price point, has such engagement with the audience, lots of fandom,” she said on the latest episode of the Variety podcast “Strictly Business.” “And I think that you can turn it over pretty quickly, while some of the scripted shows are so remarkable, where there’s so many scenes and so many locations that it just takes longer to create.” Listen to the podcast here: The unscripted series ‘The Challenge” returns to MTV on August 14th for the 40th season.
That is one of four different versions of series that runs across various platforms of the Paramount Global empire. While a being less expensive than scripted helps Pizzi get so much inventory on the air, that doesn’t necessarily mean money is no object. “The costs have also risen,” noted Pizzi, whose other credits have included “Keeping Up with the Kardashians,” “The Simple Life” and “Project Runway.” “I think really even just in the last 24 months, I think as we really tried to keep our budgets flat or the networks try to keep our budgets flat or even sometimes decrease them, the bigger struggle is just finding ways to navigate increased flight, fuel, food and labor costs.” Pizzi also addressed other labor-related issues given several recent reports regarding the reality TV.
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