Touchstone’s Mark Pedowitz

January 2007

By Anna Carugati

It’s hard enough for a
network to get one runaway hit in one season, but three is nearly impossible.
Not for ABC, which has Desperate Housewives, Lost
and Grey’s Anatomy, all produced
by its sister company, Touchstone Television. Touchstone also created two other
successful shows, Criminal Minds
and Ghost Whisperer for CBS.
Mark Pedowitz, the president of Touchstone and executive VP of the ABC
Entertainment TV Group, is aware that his studio and network are having an
incredible run.

WS: Was it a
perfect storm that brought these shows together at once or was it planned?

PEDOWITZ: I
wish I could tell you it was incredible planning, but that would be a complete,
unadulterated lie! It was the [production] cycle, and a variety of different
reasons contributed to the success of these shows. For Lost, Grey’s Anatomy and Desperate Housewives in particular, the right combination of talent
really made a difference. Grey’s Anatomy is really coming out of the box. And from a studio standpoint, for Criminal
Minds and Ghost Whisperer, it was very good collaboration with Paramount and
CBS to create shows we think will have great procedural runs.

WS: What are the
elements necessary to pull together a great drama?

PEDOWITZ: The
right mixture of creative, talent, direction and the fact that the audience
wants that experience. You can have the best show in the world, the most
well-crafted show in the world, which critics will acclaim, but if the audience
does not think it’s the right place and time for it, it will go by the wayside.
I think what happened here is that we have five shows, in various levels of
success, where the audience responded to what the storytelling was and how
relatable the characters were, because it’s all about the characters. Even when
you put all the right elements together, you don’t know whether or not they
will work. It’s a little bit of alchemy.

WS: These
shows have sold extraordinarily well around the world. To what extent do you
take feedback from international buyers?

PEDOWITZ: These
shows are produced primarily for the domestic market, first and foremost. Some
of our buyers want to talk about trying to do some of the shows [in their countries] if it made sense. Take Desperate Housewives for a moment. Latin America is doing Desperate
Housewives for five different
countries. We’re open to talk about that if it makes sense organically for the
show. Lost is a little bit hard
to do. But this is the tricky part: you don’t want to make something that looks
like it’s forced on any of the shows. If on Desperate Housewives all four women decided to take a trip to Spain [we
could] have a couple of episodes in a row that are about that world, but it
would have to be organic.

WS: As a show
becomes successful and moves into more and more seasons, costs naturally go up.
How does Touchstone deal with the escalating costs of shows?

PEDOWITZ: We
look at it as trying to make the best product possible in a contained
environment, so we sit down with our producers and have very straightforward
and frank conversations both ways. I think it’s the only way you can do it. I
have found every one of our show runners to be completely open to [compromise].
Based on the collaborative nature of the studio, they recognize that there is a
need for give and take. They know we will help them fulfill their vision, but
they understand that we have to run a business. And they will listen, and they
do listen very well, when we have a problem with a certain level of
storytelling that is just not affordable. What we try to do with our show
runners, and they try to do with us in a collaborative way, is manage
everyone’s expectations.

WS: How often
do opportunities for product placement or product integration come about?

PEDOWITZ: They
come up every day. And every day we say “no” more than we say “yes,” because if
it’s the wrong mix for the show, you’re not serving anybody. If product
integration is not organic and it doesn’t help the show, it could not only hurt
the show, it could be detrimental to it. So you may get dollars, but if you
damage the brand of your show, it would be a disaster. We look at it as, is
this an organic thing to do? Is this where our characters will go? Would our
show use this, does it make sense?

WS: Touchstone
and ABC are both owned by Disney. Does ABC interfere less with the creative
process of shows than if you were developing them for CBS or NBC?

PEDOWITZ: There
is a shorthand you can have with your sister company that you may not have with
a third party, but then they do their job and we do ours.