TBS Programming Chief Brett Weitz Talks About How Cable Can Compete With Streaming, The Future Of Linear, And The Groundbreaking Rollout Of ‘Angie Tribeca’

On Monday, TBS aired season one of Angie Tribeca. In other Monday news, TBS is already working on Season 2 of Angie Tribeca.

Sure, airing all 10 episodes of the first season in one day was a programming stunt, but these days a cable network has to do something — anything — to get viewers to pay attention to a new show. It helps if the show is good, and Angie Tribeca — a spoofy take on police procedurals created by Steve Carell and starring Rashida Jones — is definitely good. The cast includes Hayes MacArthur, Deon Cole, Jere Burns and the smartest dog since Frazier‘s Eddie.

In a conversation with Decider, TBS executive vice president of original programming Brett Weitz talks about how Angie Tribeca came together, what else TBS has in store for 2016, and how he sees the network fitting into a market transitioning toward streaming video.

DECIDER: The rollout for Angie Tribeca was a little unusual. Can you explain what you did and the idea behind that?

BRETT WEITZ: The spirit of the show is very self-serious. We talked about how we could release the show within the DNA of what it is, so we decided to release it as a marathon. We wanted to do more than a 24-hour marathon, so we ran it for 25 hours. We were trying to have some fun within the spirit of the show. Also, if you look at the SVOD (subscription video on demand) model, you store up a few episodes of something, and we wanted to give people a binge experience that was also conducive to live viewing. We wanted to do something that Netflix and Amazon and Hulu don’t do, which was create a live event around that binge.

Will Angie Tribeca be available on SVOD platforms?

We released all 10 episodes to be viewable for 30 days.

And that will be only for authenticated viewing?

Right, that will be authenticated exclusively with Comcast. For SVOD, we have a deal with Hulu to air the episodes after the season is over.

So you’re not going to have a cable-cutter way to watch the series until Hulu gets the episodes after the cable window?

That’s correct. We’re not promoting cord-cutting at this point. We’ll have it authenticated on our website and our app and for Comcast viewers on their platform.

It’s not really an issue of supporting or not supporting cord-cutting. Cable is shedding 1 percent of its customer base per year. Are you concerned that the 1 percent who are leaving cable this year will be gone forever if you don’t have a way to capture them?

We’re evolving as a corporation. If you asking if we will be a linear network for the rest of eternity, I would say probably not. We’re going to evolve as the business evolves. We’re at a tipping point in the business where if you’re not ahead of the leakage of consumption, you will be irrelevant. Does it concern me that people are consuming content in a different way than they did five years ago or even two years ago? Yes. I’m concerned about that, but it’s not the end of the consumption of television. It’s an evolution.

Do you think there is some logic to expanding out your authenticated platforms — Roku, Apple TV and whatever else — and creating an environment where you could decide later to make it a freestanding service?

I think that’s exactly right. You have to take those steps and evolve in that world. You want to be a destination where millions of people see our comedies on TBS and our dramas on TNT. As you evolve the brands, you become a destination for that type of content. We’re taking steps to do that, and we’re moving as fast as we can move.

As an observer who’s not involved in the ownership of Hulu, Netflix or Amazon, do you see them developing distinctive programming personalities, or are they all trying to find the best shows they can find?

From what I’ve seen them program, I don’t think they have created their own distinctive brands. They’re creating content. Netflix is making an enormous amount of content. To separate yourself from the pack, I think you have to define what your brand is going to be and what kind of shows you’re going to be doing. It becomes a grab bag at some point where you don’t know what network a show is on — Netflix, Hulu or Amazon. I’m not throwing stones; I think they all have incredible content. As a consumer I applaud them, but as a programmer you have to define at some point what your brand is going to be.

Angie Tribeca feels like an updated, more sophisticated take on Airplane. Was that the idea?

We didn’t intentionally go after that. We sat down with [executive producers] Steve Carell and Thom Hinkle and talked about the brand of the network and what they thought would resonate. Steve said, “Would you do anything silly?” And we said, “Yeah.” He said that all the cop procedurals out there are just a frame shy of a comedy, that if you held the camera for one more second people would start laughing. Those shows are so self-serious. Steve and Nancy Carell made this a really contemporary, really smart show.

Sad-coms have gotten really popular, and I’m not a huge fan of a lot of them. Do you think shows like Angie Tribeca and Wet Hot American Summer are in a space that is a little under-served right now?

I’m thrilled you asked the question. I’m really happy we don’t have depressive comedies. We call them depressive comedies; you call them sad-coms. What we’re trying to do is just have fun. We’re not taking ourselves seriously. We’re enjoying ourselves. Speaking of Wet Hot American Summer, we have a great show [Search Party] from Michael Showalter that we are premiering this summer. We’re less looking at the depressive state of the world and more having fun at the expense of it. We believe people want to laugh right now. These depressive comedies have a cool factor, but for my taste and longevity wise, what we want to do is make people laugh.

When you developed Angie Tribeca, you were dealing with two people — Steve Carell and Rashida Jones — who are very busy acting and producing. How difficult was it to get them aligned long enough to figure the show out?

You know, we got really lucky with Steve Carell’s schedule. He had just done Foxcatcher, and he and Nancy wrote the script very quickly. Rashida had left Parks & Rec and had focused on writing for a bit. She’s writing Toy Story 4, and we’ve been accommodating of her schedule and making sure that was a priority for her. This was 10 episodes of television, so it’s not the time commitment of a 22-episode order. It’s a three-month schedule — more like a feature schedule — so the stars aligned for them. Steve was there for almost every table read of the first season and directed the first episode, and we had a great writing staff.

You have two seasons done already. Did you shoot the front 10 and then immediately go into the next 10?

We shot the first 10 and wrapped and everybody went away. While we were editing those, we started talking about how we wanted to premiere it and when we wanted to launch it. [Network president] Kevin Reilly was coming in, and we wanted to make sure we were all aligned, which we very much were. When we started watching the episodes, we quickly realized that we really had something.

In a landscape where 10 half-hours are supposed to resonate among so much other content, we felt like we might be under-servicing the show, so we picked it up for another 10. We want the audience to see that it’s something we’re supporting and something we’re excited about. Audiences don’t invest in comedies that is 10 episodes that they know may not have a shot at a second season.

Do you think then that programming a network as 100 percent comedy is riskier than a diversified portfolio of genres that will give you time to build those comedies?

If you do it right and bring things back for multiple seasons, you’ll have success. When we look to program the network, we’re looking at what our failure rate is going to be and figure out how we’re going to succeed. Right now, we’re in the early stages of the TBS evolution. Yes, we’re looking at scripted, but we also have unscripted and the NCAA championships and Major League Baseball. We’re exploring documentaries. We’re investing big in animation. We believe that the comedy need is under-serviced compared to drama.

How involved did Steve and Nancy Carell stay beyond the pilot?

Every day. Every day. Every cut. Every table read. They saw it all. They have been as involved as any executive producer/showrunner could be.

Kevin Reilly said at TCA press tour that TBS and TNT are both going to undergo pretty big overhauls over the next few years, but he was talking mostly about reducing ad loads. What does the overhaul mean as far as what kinds of shows you’re developing?

We have had a very successful strategy of being a broadcast replacement for cable. We have really taken the broadcast blinders off now and are pushing for more of a cable sensibility. Angie Tribeca may not have worked on broadcast. It needs to simmer in that basic cable model. If you look at Jason Jones’s show [The Detour] and Samantha Bee’s show [Full Frontal with Samantha Bee] and Wrecked and Search Party and People of Earth, those things start to feel more cable than broadcast. For me, programming the network, it feels like we’re headed in the right direction.

How will your total hours of original programming for this year to compare to 2015?

In 2015, we premiered two original series — Your Family or Mine and Clipped. In 2016, we will have six original scripted series and two original unscripted series plus eSports [competitive video gaming]. In 2017, that schedule will probably increase. We are almost tripling the amount of original content on the network.

What start dates have you announced?

Full Frontal with Samantha Bee will premiere on Feb. 8. The Detour will premiere Apr. 11 after March Madness. Separation Anxiety, which is a game show, will premiere March 8. America’s Greatest Makers, which is a competition show, will be sometime in the spring. Search Party and Wrecked will premiere early summer, and People of Earth will premiere sometime in the fall.

[Stream Angie Tribeca on the Watch TBS app or Amazon Video]

Scott Porch writes about the streaming-media industry for Decider. He is also a contributing writer for Signature and The Daily Beast. You can follow him on Twitter @ScottPorch.