HBO's president floats revolutionary idea that people like TV shows that come out every year with lots of episodes

This came up in a recent interview Bloys gave to Deadline, and especially in regards to The Pitt, which, Bloys is careful to note, is not exactly working from a revolutionary production model: “One of the reasons why medical shows have been a staple of television is it is a unique setup where you spend the majority of your time in one location, and drama walks through your door, three times an episode, somebody dying, somebody in distress.” Asked what the “lesson” of the show’s success has been, Bloys didn’t attempt to overthink the basic benefits of hiring experts to make a good show that doesn’t cost too much that can put out a dozen or more episodes of TV every single year: “I don’t know if it’s a lesson so much as it’s the history of television. There is a reason why shows were designed this way. What we were hoping for—and what The Pitt delivered—was more than six or eight weeks of episodes, 15 weeks of weekly engagement, but also, and probably most importantly in this environment, setting up a show that is creatively capable of coming back within a year, and with producers who are able to do that.”

Hollywood’s come-down from the early highs of the binge release model has been fascinating to watch, as network executives have slowly realized that, yep, there may actually be some merit in stretching a show’s public experience out across several months, instead of a single bleary-eyed night. Bloys did move to make it clear that, although that small-scale approach is also working heavily in the favor of A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms, which is already filming its second season while getting acclaim for telling a much more human-level story than, say, fellow Game Of Thrones spin-off House Of The Dragon, any such decisions are dictated by the creative side of things, not the network’s urges to cozy up. That being said, the show will be back next year, as Bloys states that going annual “Was something that we were trying to—it’s not possible for all shows—but it is something that, where it’s possible creatively, to get back to that and we’d like to try and do that.”