On December 20th 2011, we were finally ready to pitch our show to networks. But we didn't know how to do it. So while Aramis was finishing off a few more scripts for our First Season, I decided to do research on how networks work. I've done some reshearch earlier in 2011, so I already knew that you can't pitch a show anywhere in the USA without a manager. So with that knowledge I decided to look at Candian networks (Mostly because it's free). So I looked around and I saw on CBC's website a section of which you can pitch your show to. So I called Aramis and told him about it. He had changed his train of thought. "Andrew, We still still need to finish the Season," Aramis had said."We have about 5 or 6 left. Once thats done then we should take our show to networks." I agreed with him.
So we spent the rest of December finishing off more scripts. Then January came around and we still weren't quite done the season yet. We had 3 episodes to go. But I thought we should go ahead with the project and send it to CBC. "Aramis we only have three episodes left and it won't take long to finish, so I say we send it to CBC," I said. He still wasn't convinced, but after a 30 minute discussion he had finally a given in. "Lets give it a shot," Aramis said. " I don't think CBC can afford us but we can try."
On January 15th we sent Patrick O'Sullivan an email. We didn't want to wait for CBC to respond, so I suggested that in the meantime we take "Life Is Hell" to Bell Media. Bell Media owned channels like "CTV," "Bravo," & "Comedy." So we decided to send our show there. By Febuary our first Season was complete and we were geared up and ready to start Season 2. After discussing this idea (which was presented to me by Aramis), we decided to wait until CBC and Bell respondes to our pitch before we move forward. A few eeks later it was Febuary 23 and we recieved a response from Patrick O'Sullivan of CBC.
Email from CBC:
"Hi Andrew,"
"Thank you very much for sending 'Life is Hell' in for us to evaluate."
"We have now had the chance to read and discuss the package, and I'm afraid that we are not going to be able to move this series forward for development. Certainly this is a creative series idea, but at the moment we're focused on finding 8/8:30 series ideas, appealing to a broad demo (but with a sweet spot of women in their 30s and 40s), with grounded setups and scenarios, relatable and familiar characters, and comedy from character and small everyday situations. Unfortunately 'Life is Hell' didn't feel like an ideal fit."
"I'm sorry to pass this news on Andrew, but thank you for sending it
in to us. Best of luck as you continue to pitch this series around."
Best,
Pat.
The following month, we recieved an email from Bell Media basically saying how Mike Richardson passed our show around to every executive producer in their company and that they couldn't take our show due to undisclosed reasons. What we tend to think its because "they couldn't afford us." Next I sent our show to Citytv. Later that month and they got back to us and said they couldn't take our show because they already had an action show called "Person Of Interest." So even though we knew we didn't get onto a Canadian network just yet, we still decided to go ahead with writting Season 2. We still had plenty of confidence in our scripts and we felt we were going places. It was now April, at this point we knew we weren't getting anywhere in Canada so we decided that we will give the USA a try. The only way to do that was to hire a manager and that is exactly what we did.
Andrew Di Pardo
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