Obligatory: Doug and Courtney Stodden Get a Reality Show Development Deal

Wombat headlined this in “Live at Five,” but given how much attention we’d previously given the Hollywood teen bride, here’s some more:

Teen bride Courtney Stodden has signed a deal with a production company to produce her reality show Radaronline.com has exclusively learned.
The 17-year-old and her Green Mile actor husband Doug Hutchison have signed a deal with Roy Bank, the president of Merv Griffin Entertainment. . . .
“The reason we went with Roy is because we feel that he is the man who will be able to place Courtney’s show in front of the best network for her,” Krista Stodden, Courtney’s momager, told Radaronline.com. . . .
“They are going to be very, very open about their lives,” Courtney’s mom said. “They want everybody to see their life. Nothing is off limits.”

First of all, it’s necessary to explain what a “development deal” is: The producer has contracted with Hutchison-Stodden to develop a show, which the producer then expects to place with a network. So camera crews will now begin recording footage of the couple, which will then be edited into a rough-cut “episodes” and shown to network executives in “pitch” meetings.

It’s the reality-TV equivalent of a rock band signing with a producer to record a demo.

There is no guarantee that any network with actually buy the show, and so the producer is more or less gambling that he can sell it and thus recoup his costs, including whatever money he’s agreed to pay Hutchison-Stodden during the “development” phase. Obviously, the president of a major production company isn’t going to invest money in a project he doesn’t think he can sell. You can bet that Roy Bank has already talked to network executives to gauge their interest, and in his mind the question isn’t whether he’ll sell the show, but to whom and for what price. If he can sell 26 episodes to a broadcast network — ABC or Fox — that’s the high end, whereas if he gets a 13-episode deal with Bravo, that’s substantially less. And the difference will depend on the quality of the rough-cut episodes shown as “demos” to the execs.

This explanation is necessary because nowadays in Hollywood, everybody and their uncle is shopping a reality show. People I know personally have been involved in “development deals” where they were followed around by camera crews shooting footage for reality shows that never made it to a network. And there have been plenty of reality TV shows that aired for a few months, didn’t generate ratings and disappeared, leaving the “stars” scarcely more famous than they were before the show.

So it is by no means certain that Doug and Courtney, by signing this deal, have bought a ticket to becoming the next Kardashians.

The business of being “Famous for Being Famous” is a highly competitive industry. We note that Doug and Courtney signed with the former executive producer of Are You Smarter Than a Fifth-Grader?

Suggested title for the new show: Are You Sleeping With an 11th-Grader?

PREVIOUSLY:

• July 21: ‘What God Hath Joined Together …’
• July 20: EXCLUSIVE: Hollywood Teen Bride’s Mom Blames Jealousy, ‘Insecurities’ for Criticism of Courtney and Doug Hutchison
• July 20: Talking to Courtney Stodden’s Mom
• July 15: VIDEO: Teen Bride Courtney Stodden Says, ‘God Blessed Me With My Soulmate’
• June 30: Self-Proclaimed Pagan Rob Taylor Lectures Conservatives on Morality?
• June 23: Teen Bride’s Mom: ‘Courtney Is Used to This Type of Reaction Towards Her’
• June 22: A Christian Virgin in Hollywood?