TBS Programming Chief Brett Weitz On Transforming ‘Search Party’ From VOD Smash To Linear Success

In the era of Peak TV, HBO, Netflix and FX tend to dominate with critics, audiences, and Emmy voters, but don’t sleep on TBS, a network that has quietly become a cable and digital powerhouse for smart comedy. Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, which gets most of the attention, is overtly political — and great, vital TV — but the rest of the slate avoids the third rail of politics.

The shows that have something bigger to say — like The Guest Book on relationships or People of Earth on loneliness and alienation — are using the human condition and social satire rather than political differences to do it. That’s certainly the case with Search Party, which is about millennials searching for meaning in their lives and figuring out that the journey is the thing.

Decider sat down with Brett Weitz, TBS’s executive VP for original programming to talk about Season 2 of Search Party, several new shows coming in 2018, and how the network is adapting to the changes in how people watch TV.

DECIDER: Season 1 of Search Party got a big critical reception and made a lot of social-media noise for TBS releasing the whole season at one time. Is that your flagship show now?

BRETT WEITZ: Search Party and Samantha Bee are certainly our two critical darlings. Hollywood has paid a lot of attention to Search Party and the people involved in that show, and middle America is still discovering it. Last year, we gave it to everybody at one time as a Thanksgiving treat, and that worked for us.

If you look at how and where people consume television, the cool kids — the college kids, our target demographic — comes home during Thanksgiving, they start watching something, they talk to their friends, and by Christmas they’re all watching that thing. We did that last year with Search Party, and it kind of worked. We binged it over Thanksgiving, and then it was always out there on all of our platforms, and by January people were telling us it was the greatest thing they had ever seen.

Given all of that, why are you changing the release pattern to weekly for Season 2. Why not do the same thing you did last season and see if you can catch lightning twice?

Right now, we have all of Search Party Season 1 available on our app, unauthenticated and commercial-free. We put a completely SVOD experience on our own platform in order to create traction. Season 2, though, really plays out as this Hitchcockian mystery/thriller/comedy, so we decided to put out two episodes a week for five weeks and create a sense of: “I need it. I need it. I wanna talk about it.”

People watched Search Party last year, but it wasn’t our highest rated show. It was our most consumed show on VOD, but it wasn’t our highest-rated linear show, and a lot of people are still discovering it. Making Season 1 unauthenticated and commercial free is a great experience, and then you can go into Season 2 and develop more of a weekly habit.

Do you know from your viewing data whether you’ve had more re-watchers or first-time watchers since you put Season 1 out unauthenticated?

There are a lot of new watchers. Word of mouth is definitely out about Search Party, and the completion rate of people who watch the first episode and then watch the full season is very high for us. Also, last season ended on a hook and this season will too. You watch and say, “I can’t believe they just did that.” Michael Showalter and the other creators sent the script to us for the Season 2 finale, and I called and said, “You can’t do this.” They said they wanted to paint themselves into a corner and figure it out later.

You were concerned that the Season 2 finale didn’t leave the door open for a third season?

Right, it was like, “Where do you go from here?” Season 1 ended with these four people being complicit in a crime, and it’s like, “How do you get out of that?” What we’ve said during this rebranding of TBS is that we have to trust our creators.

Season 2 of Search Party will air on Sunday nights. Is that traditionally a big programming night for TBS?

The Big Bang Theory does extremely well for us on Sunday nights, and that’s a good place for us to launch an event-style show.

Did you see Tiffany Haddish on Saturday Night Live? You should put her in a TBS show with Tracy Morgan.

[Laughs.] I have two young daughters so I was asleep by 9:30, but I’ve seen the clips of her performance. She’s a powerhouse, and she’s great in The Last OG.

You originally announced The Last OG for fall, and now that’s going to early 2018. Why did you make that scheduling change?

We are already wrapped on production for The Last OG, so we were already finished with Season 1 and having discussions about what a potential Season 2 would be. We have the NCAA Final Four and finals on our air, and launching behind that is going to be a great place for one of our highest-profile comedies.

Did parting with showrunner John Carcieri delay production? Was that a part of the decision?

No, that didn’t affect production at all. Our scheduling guys were looking at the next year and waving a red flag about who the audience for that show will be and the real opportunity we have to launch it early next year. We started testing the show and realizing it would be amazing to put behind the NCAA Tournament, which is essentially our Super Bowl.

Your next original is The Detour in January?

Yes, so we have The Detour and a few other announced comedies coming up. We have our first animated series, which is called Final Space. It’s brilliant and funny, and creator Olan Rogers is the most original, authentic voice I’ve heard in a long, long time. We also have Miracle Workers with Steve Buscemi playing God and Daniel Radcliffe playing the angel in charge of the prayers department in heaven, and we just finished the table read for all seven episodes of that series.

TBS has suspended production on Louis CK’s animated show The Cops. Are you dropping that now or recasting Louis CK?

We’re at a pause, and we’re reevaluating our options.

Louis CK’s production company is behind the show. Can you really fire him off the show and not still be in business with him on it?

There are ways of doing that. We’ve never been in this position before, and we’re looking at all of our options in hopes of making a decision before the end of this year.

For alternative programming, you’ve had Drop the Mic and The Joker’s Wild this fall. What do those do for you that scripted shows don’t do? Is that about bringing down your overall programming costs?

It’s that, and it’s also being in business with people like Method Man, James Corden and Snoop Dogg. Those shows cost considerably less and can sometimes deliver bigger ratings than scripted shows, and we have people on our air that we might not otherwise have. It creates an access point to personalities who can drive new viewers to the network. They’ll see an ad for The Detour or Angie Tribeca or The Last OG, and maybe they come back for one of those shows.

You’ve been building a brand around smart, scripted half-hours. Why doesn’t it make more sense in a very crowded market to try and get more sunlight for those shows and doing animated and unscripted? Why try and look like a broadcast network?

We still are something like a broadcast network. We’re a cable network that gets paid by advertisers to bring a lot of viewers to the table. You can’t just do The Last OG and Angie Tribeca when you run a 24-hour, 7-day-a-week network. If Final Space becomes the next Simpsons, it can change our business. We’re creating a comedy brand, and that includes unscripted and late-night and animation and scripted. When you see Final Space, I hope you email me and say, “This is a smart animated show that fits into TBS’s comedy brand.”

What’s the status of Michael Ian Black’s Moon Cruise?

That’s still in development, and we hope to shoot a pilot. Michael Showalter is attached to that, and he’s a busy guy right now.

I know you’ve already ordered a second season of The Guest Book, which is one of my favorite shows of the year. The show is set up sort of like Love Boat with some regular cast and some new people in every episode. Why did you think that would work?

We had lunch with Alix Jaffe, who runs Amigos de Garcia Productions, and she said, “Greg Garcia has this passion project that he can’t get anyone to buy.” He was on a trip and started reading the guestbook at the place he was staying, and he started thinking about that as a weekly show. We said, “We’ll buy that right now.” It’s such an original idea, and it’s really been a great show for us.

How close are you to having all of your originals stacked on the TBS app?

Some shows are on an output deal with Hulu, but we have many of our shows going back to the first episode on the TBS app.

Time Warner has made it a corporate priority for its networks to stack their own shows but also owns a stake in Hulu. How are you navigating that?

As deftly as we can. There’s an after-market for our programming, and we have our own interest in keeping them in house. We’re trying to do both of those things.

Do you want to put a new half-hour, late-night show behind Samantha Bee?

We absolutely do, and we want Sam to do it. When she’s ready to find that next talent, we want to be a launch pad for that. Viewers are attentive to that kind of programming, and Sam Bee is definitely equipped to build that.

Have you talked to Sam Bee and Jason Jones about doing that?

We talk to them all the time and about a lot of different things — more original content, more digital content. Sam and Jason are very good at what they do, and we want their brand on TBS anyway we can.

Is Conan moving from four nights a week to one night a week?

Conan right now will stay at four nights a week. He’s going to continue doing his travel specials, and he wants to evolve and change. He is as inspired after 25 years as he was on Day 1, and I think what his show will evolve into is still up for debate.

You’ve tried some things after Conan that haven’t worked long-term. Do you want another late-night show coming on after Conan at some point?

I’d like to have another late-night show for sure. Where that show goes is up for discussion — behind Conan, Friday nights, Saturday nights. I hope you take from the conversation that we’re definitely willing to try some different things. We can’t execute against the 50-year TV playbook. We want to rewrite that playbook and hope it becomes the industry standard.

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

Stream Search Party on TBS