How to sell a great idea for a TV show?

What is the process for the development of a TV show concept from conception of idea to actual launch?

• How do you take an idea for a TV show and make it a reality? What is the process from conception to launch? How do you protect your idea? How do you get your show idea on TV? How do you make money from a TV show? What are key areas to be careful of during the process?

• Answer:

  Big question.  Easy answer: know somebody, know somebody, know somebody.  Seriously, it starts with your relationships but the order of operations can go something like this (yes, I'm generalizing big time): 1. Conceive idea. 2. Write pilot (with arc for at least the first season laid out) 3. Self-fund pilot. 4. If you can't self-fund (ha!), get the script to an agent that A) has a brain, B) has integrity--at least a dash of it, C) has the connections to make good things happen. 5. If the agent meets the above criteria and likes your work and wants to do something about it, s/he will give you notes to improve the script. 5. You or your agent pitch it to studios/nets that have never heard anything like your Lost meets Blue Bloods meets Happy Days. 6. If a studio likes your pitch they could: A) pass for now because they're spending all of their pilot money on a Greatest American Hero reboot set in the world of Terra Nova (because accounting refuses to write off a hundred hangers of jungle props and animatronic dinosaurs still sitting Down Under). B) order a script based on your pitch. 7. Your show dies a premature death when the exec that ordered it wakes up in January and realizes that nobody will give a crap about The Fonz leading a family of cops into a deserted island hell and back. 8. Or your script is ordered to pilot because who the crap wouldn't want to see Daniel Dae Kim as The Fonz leading a family of cops into a deserted island hell and back?!? 9. The pilot chugs right along--writing good (including show bible), showrunner good, casting good, exec sponsor is still employed, and the studio has spent too much to not see this thing through/still loves your project. 10. The pilot actually works and is ordered to series. 11. If pilot is ordered to series, you experience the unbridled joy of THR's Tim Goodman savaging your baby like the Thunder annihilated my Lakers. 12.  Miracle of miracles, an actual viewing audience decides your fate--and they like you.  They really, really like you. There are many, many variations on this theme including backdoor pilots, straight-to-series orders and otherwise.