Should I put my own money into producing a reality show pilot or series?
There is another way a reality television show can get funded, and that is from a big, giant conglomerate entertainment company. They may deficit the show, meaning that they pay for the production, or half of the production cost, and the network pays the other half. The reason a company would want to pay to produce their own show is so they could own it, and sell it overseas, and sell the DVD, and make the spin-off movie. There are a lot of reasons why you might want to own it. My advice to anybody new in the reality television business is don't even try any of that. Get your show completely funded by your network, and deliver your show and go the traditional route, until you become a big enough player that owning the show could mean something. Because the truth is, if you're new in the business, owning your show is meaningless. You will not be able to exploit it, as a novice in this business. You will not be able to sell overseas rights. You won't know how. Honestly, if you don't have a hit show, nobody wants it overseas anyway. You're only going to get a hit reality show if you sell it on a network. My advice is to sell the show, take the funding from other people, and don't use your own money. I never use my own money, even to make a pilot or a presentation. I feel like if it's a good enough idea, somebody will pay you to make it. The people who pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into their own pilots are really wasting their time.
