TV News

FlashForward is one of the most anticipated series of the upcoming fall series, and not just for audiences. HBO is also wanting the show to succeed, even though the sci-fi drama will be airing on the Disney-owned ABC. Why is this?

Well, if you've read the script of the pilot episode of the series, you'll know that it's laden with profanities that couldn't be said on network television. Nudity is also included in the script, and it goes without saying that you won't be seeing of that on ABC either. That's because the script was originally written to be pitched to HBO, the pay-cable network known for adult-oriented fare such as True Blood and Hung. HBO passed on the series, however.

So why do they care if FlashForward crashes and burns? The answer to that is "chump insurance," (as the LA Times has named it)  which HBO bought from FlashForward before allowing it to be passed on to other markets. "Chump insurance" sounds juvenille, but it's a rather smart notion in which a network buys a share in a show that they reject, just so that they can generate some profit if the show becomes a hit on another network.

And that's just what HBO did to FlashForward, turning it down but buying an interest in it so that if the show became a hit, they wouldn't have made a huge mistake. HBO will get between $5,000 and $7,500 for each aired episode of FlashForward, as well as 5% of any revenue generated by the inevitable reruns. However, even though they wanted it, HBO will not recieve a producing credit on the show.

Of course, we can only speculate how the show would have played out on the pay-cable network, with an average of ten more minutes per episode. However, the production team are confident that the show will do well no matter what network it's on, and apparently HBO thinks so too.