Ask An Assistant: Alyssa Hansen (Freeform) and Hannah Ascheim (Lionsgate)
Executive Assistant, Current Programming & Development, Freeform Television &
Executive Assistant, EVP & Head of Current Programming, Lionsgate Television
Interviewed by: Rachel Jarrot (Executive Assistant, More/Medavoy Management)
Current Programming is a part of the industry that is very near & dear to my heart, and the time I spent working in Current was one of the best experiences of my life.
One of the many things I learned during my time in Current is that a lot of people, both inside and outside of the industry, don’t really know what Current Programming is or exactly what that department does. To give us the inside scoop, we’ve invited not one but two assistants working in Current to share their experiences with the THA community, one from the network-side and one from the studio-side. Here’s what they had to say…
Before we take a deep dive into all things Current Programming, can you please take a moment and introduce yourselves? Since we have a lot of ground to cover, we can keep it simple - can you tell us where you are from, how long you’ve been in the industry, what your current (no pun intended) roles are?
Alyssa: Hi! My name is Alyssa Hansen and I'm from Orange County, specifically, Irvine. When I graduated college, I moved to LA where I eventually landed at Freeform Network, where I have been now for 6 ½ years as an Executive Assistant. Most of my career has been in Current Programming but over the years our teams have combined, and now my team handles Current Programming and Development for Freeform. I mostly work on the Current side, though. I've just fallen in love with every aspect of Current Programming, but I know we're going to get to that later, so I will stop there for now!
Hannah: Hi guys, I'm Hannah! I am from New York, and I've been in the industry for about five years at this point. I've bounced around a little bit between different sectors of the industry but have been in Current Programming for about two years now (actually two years exactly when this edition comes out). I’m an Executive Assistant to EVP of Television & Head of Current Programming at Lionsgate.
My next question is a two-parter, Alyssa, I know most of your career has been in Current Programming, but Hannah, you mentioned you’ve worked in different parts of the industry, can you both talk about how you ended up in Current Programming and I’m curious, did you know what Current Programming was before you landed there?
Alyssa: As I mentioned I started at Freeform right when I was graduating from college. I was bouncing from internship to internship, one at NBC, and one at a YouTube company called Maker Studios. I eventually landed an internship with Freeform, and the internship actually covered Development, Current, and also a little bit of Casting as well, which was a great opportunity for me to get a sense of the brand. I was always a huge fan of Freeform (formerly ABC Family), specifically, a huge Pretty Little Liars fan - in general, just a huge fan of young adult content. It felt like the perfect launchpad as a young adult coming into a young adult brand. During my internship, a Current Programming assistant role opened up and they just slid me right in there. I started as a temp and then became full time. I absolutely did not know what Current Programming was coming into it. I was very confused and had never heard of it, but then once I learned what it was, I just fell in love with it.
Hannah: I had a general understanding of current programming, but I’ve definitely learned most of what I know today on the job. When I graduated from college, I knew I wanted to be in the world of film and TV, but it took me a beat to find the right sector for me. I did what many of our counterparts have done, and I started out at an agency. I worked in Literary Packaging at WME for about a year and a half and that was amazing. I learned so much, and it was incredibly cool to be in a space where we were also dealing with books and manuscripts. As I narrowed in on a television focus, I realized that was definitely where I wanted to land. Then, I worked for a showrunner for a couple years during the pandemic and we shot and wrote a full season of a show, and that was a different kind of unbelievably incredible. Towards the end of my time working for her I realized that I missed the ability to work on a variety of projects simultaneously (like I’d done at WME). I found myself missing that more and more, as much as I loved being deeply on the weeds on one specific show. So, I applied to a bunch of production companies and studios and was lucky enough to land at Lionsgate working for an incredible executive and boss.
I’ve always loved talking about TV and the entertainment industry, and once I started working in entertainment and in Current Programming specifically, everyone was always very curious to understand what my job entailed (I was often asked if my job was just “watching tv all day long”, which, to their surprise, was actually part of the job). Sometimes it can be hard to explain - which leads me to my next question: How would you define “Current Programming” when someone asks what you do?
Alyssa: I use an analogy! But to give you more of a definition (and I’ll tell you my analogy after), we take a show that comes from a pilot that development helped create, and make it into a series - of course, we work together with our writers, producers, and all the creatives involved. It's about the transition from development, they get pitched ideas for pilots, then they decide which pilots to buy, they develop them, the pilots get made, and then the ones that get picked up to series are passed onto theCurrent Programming team and they take over, in my case, for the network. The analogy I use is taking the football and scoring a touchdown. Basically, we're picking it up where development leaves it off and we take it all the way to the end from season one forward - but really it’s about making it a successful show beyond just the first couple of episodes. What I’ve learned is those first couple of episodes are so important to the success of a show because a lot of people these days watch a pilot and within the first 20 minutes know whether or not they're going to love the show and whether they're going to carry on with it, or if they're going to turn it off and switch to one of the bazillion other things that they can watch on any given day. I think the most important responsibilities of Current Programming is helping the creatives maintain the audience, as well as trying to find ways to grow and build upon the audience season to season to make the show as successful and long standing as possible.
Hannah: Completely agreed and, for what it's worth, that was a great analogy! I have a few, one that is sports-themed as well but I'm going to go in another direction and use the train one for this conversation. I would say, at least from the studio perspective, it is most simply defined as servicing the needs of our showrunners, our creators, our buyers/platforms (networks or streamers, like Freeform) and figuring out buzzword creative solutions, or just any solution when those needs are opposed; which happens often; all of that is in service of, as you had said Alyssa, ensuring that, okay here we go with the train metaphor, the train stays on the tracks. The train that our development teams have so, so diligently and with so much love and care crafted and put onto the tracks, then entrust us to see it through to the finish line. Essentially, on the studio side, securing renewals while servicing the needs of our creatives and our buyers.
I appreciate how you both had a little bit of a different answer– it did a great job giving readers a bit of insight to the differences between the studio-side versus the network-side of Current Programming. On that note, could you both give us an idea of what a work day in the life of a Current Programming assistant looks like for you? I’m curious to hear if anything differs!
Hannah: I think there's a bunch of overlap between what we do on the studio and network side. Admin tasks take up a majority of the time, but anytime I am not doing admin things, I'm definitely watching or reading anything that has come in for any of our 20 shows. I spend a lot of time reviewing material for people that are in the running to be staffed on any of such shows and chatting about it. There is definitely a lot of fun collaboration on that front. All that’s to say, I'm lucky enough to have a job where I mostly get to read scripts and watch TV and it's definitely the best part. The thing that I would imagine differs the most between our day-to-day on the studio side, and Alyssa, please correct me if i’m wrong, is our biggest job is being the first line of defense and supporting our showrunners and, really, everyone who is shooting or writing the show. We are the middlemen doing everything we can to keep our showrunners and producers happy while also keeping our buyers happy as well. I'm also now realizing as a middle child, in some ways, I've been training for this my entire life! But overall, really just being there to listen and come up with solutions that work best for everyone.
Alyssa: There is definitely a lot of overlap, we do a lot of reading and watching on the network side as well and, of course, all the administrative things. But I think one difference I noticed is the network side usually doesn’t have as many shows. For us at Freeform, we usually have about 4 or 5 scripted shows (which I know is less than most networks) but I think because we have less shows a lot of time our main focus is on the creative. We also spend a lot of time collaborating with our teams internally like social, casting, marketing, synergy, etc. to make our shows as successful as possible. We have a lot of routine check-ins with those respective clients to see what opportunities we can create whether that be with stunt casting or bringing in a big set piece or something flashy– all of those things factor into our day to day at the network.
Hannah: 1000%! Our team at the studio works with a lot of our internal teams, as well. On our end, especially production, we are constantly going back to them to ask for more money or to move money around haha. So, we definitely collaborate with those teams regularly, as well!
My next question is something I loved being asked when I was working in Current Programming, what is your favorite thing about working in Current Programming and why?
Alyssa: I think my favorite thing is being able to really cultivate a relationship with the producers we work with. One example I can think of is our show, Good Trouble, that I had the pleasure of working on, that was a show that had a legacy because Good Trouble was a spinoff of The Fosters, and our showrunner Joanna Johnson has been a part of the Freeform family for 10 years. She was with Freeform when it was ABC Family, and she was with us through that transition which was very special. In Current, being able to help carry a show from season to season and help make it successful is a really interesting challenge. Also, being able to have these long standing, close relationships with these producers and continuing to build that connection and relationship with them and collaborate with them is amazing. You get to do that in other departments to some extent, but I think in Current Programming, you get to work with these incredibly talented creatives for, hopefully, several years as you help bring their vision to life season after season.
Hannah: Great answer, I completely agree. I would say I would even take it a step further and say building the connections with the incredible creators that are working on our shows but also getting to meet so many unbelievably talented writers and directors and just the constant influx of unbelievable talent that comes across our desks, whether that’s for staffing or creatives that are already are employed on our shows. It’s just so staggering in the best way and why I love what I do.
Those are great answers and I totally agree, as well! For me, now, in the representation world, I get to work even closer with some of those creatives and sit on the other side of the table, as I like to say. But it’s the best experience getting to work with such brilliant creative people who put their heart and soul into what they do every day to bring their art to life for the world to enjoy.
To piggyback off that, is there a project you’ve been a part of in your time in Current that has been really special for you? I loved all the shows I was lucky enough to be a small part of, but there is one, in particular, I think about often that was uniquely special.
Alyssa: Good Trouble is definitely up there, but since I already talked about it quite a bit, I also want to shout out Everything's Gonna Be Okay. The showrunner, creator, and star of that show, Josh Thomas, came to us from Australia after working on his big show out there called Please Like Me, which is also a phenomenal show. But I really enjoyed working on that project because it was a comedy centered around a family where Josh's character was the caretaker for the family, his mom and two sisters, and the dad passes away in the pilot. Specifically, what was so special to me was the two sisters’ relationship. One of the sisters has autism and I was really touched by the show because it resonated with me on a personal level. I have a sister who has a rare disease and a developmental disability, so for me I feel like that was a show where I really saw myself being represented. I saw myself and my own sister through these characters. It was also the first show where I got to shadow the covering executive and be even more part of that creative process. So, for all those reasons, that one will always stand out as a special project to me.
Hannah: I loved that show so much even before I knew about the personal layer for you! I would say, for me, it was probably the show that I just came off of which was the reboot of The L Word, The L Word: Generation Q for Showtime. Like many queer girls, I grew up watching, sort of sneaking, the original series when I was like 11 and 12. I would sneak downstairs and watch it while everyone was asleep and never in my life did I ever think that I would be working in this industry let alone on that very show. So it was very much a full circle and really, pretty beautiful moment for me. Also, I would say in terms of shows that we're working on right now, it would be Yellowjackets, which is one that came over to us in the eOne acquisition. We've jumped on the train pretty late since we're in Season Three now, but I was such a big fan of the show well before we started working on it, so it's been another moment where I can't believe this is actually my job. As a fan, I'm so invested, but now, it’s also my job to be invested in it - it’s always a special feeling when you're a fan first.
Before I ask my last question, I want to shift gears here slightly. This industry has, like many industries, gone through a lot of changes in the years that have followed since the start of the pandemic, but then also with the strikes last year and the major layoffs we’ve been seeing. Can you talk a little bit about your experience being in Current through all this change and how that’s impacted your shows, but also the industry at large?
Alyssa: I was in Current Programming at Freeform through both the pandemic and the strikes and there has definitely been a lot of changes. It’s been about learning how to handle the evolving situations and shepherding along through it. As things grow and change, you grow and change with it. In the last year with the two strikes, production budgets are significantly smaller and our appetite for making anything new is so much smaller but people are still craving content. So, we are giving as much as we can with what we have. With the pandemic, that was figuring out how to navigate how to move forward, creatively and literally. At first it was, do we go on hiatus, and then for how long? Then, it was, should COVID and the pandemic be a part of our storylines or do we leave it out? With everything that’s happened in the industry and also since the birth of streamers, we have to think a lot about packaging and how stories like that will age. Of course, with a medical show like Grey’s Anatomy, the pandemic will likely, hopefully, be the biggest medical hardships of our lifetime, so it made sense it was addressed there and I think long term, that will still make sense. But for other shows where things like that aren’t instrumental in the long term storylines, it was better to leave it out and let the story feel more timeless.
Hannah: That was such a beautifully graceful answer! To piggyback off that, there was a realism factor in acknowledging the pandemic in our shows that wrote it in. On the flip side, the shows that chose not to write it in I think give their shows a bit more of an evergreen quality which, from the studio perspective, comes from the angle of thinking about its versatility. Even if a show has reached the end of its life on a specific platform, we are thinking about its survival on another platform. For example, since it’s so big right now, Suits came back to life 4 ½ years after its end on USA, now topping charts on Netflix. I don’t think that’s something we ever really talked about in the beginning and now it's become such a critical part of the conversation. I think in some ways that's why we are seeing a lot of companies invest in spinoffs or revivals that have been proven to work rather than taking a chance on development. I think that is one of the many reasons why Current Programming departments are still so important.
Thank you, that was such great insight into what you experienced working in Current through it all and you both made some really good, fascinating points on how all that’s happened affects how we continue to move forward.
Speaking of moving forward, the last question I have for you both is what is one piece of advice you have for college students, assistants just starting in the business, or even seasoned assistants who want to make the jump to the creative side of the network or studio side that are reading this?
Alyssa: Coming into Current, but I also feel like this applies to Development, my advice is just to consume as much content as you can across the board. It can be TV, film, podcasts, video games, or audiobooks, but any way that you can ingest content and diversify yourself the more you can bring to the table. Video games in particular are a great place to explore because it's something that a lot of people in the industry are really curious about, especially with the success of The Last of Us and Twisted Metal. Even being able to consume content that you don't feel is your “thing,” that you don't feel like you're going to like watching, give it a chance and see because you could fall in love with it, or maybe you don't. The key is that you're able to learn how to pinpoint why other people love it. So I think that's my biggest piece of advice, consume as much as you can.
Hannah: That is a great piece of advice, I agree. I also think learning how you speak about what you like and why you like it is also deeply important because that’s so much of what we do in Current Programming. We read and watch things and give feedback and another perspective to our creative partners. When you learn early on how to give your opinion, you can develop that to give feedback that helps make something the best version it can be, which is a lot of what our executives do every day. In general, I think it's a skill you'll need pretty much wherever you would land in this industry as well as persistence and perseverance. A lot of people want to be on this side of the industry which makes it competitive. I heard someone say the only people who don't make it in this industry are the people who don't stick it out. Of course, I think that it’s definitely more layered than that. But, I do think the sense of “just keep swimming” is deeply, deeply true. To that effect, the last thing I will say, as everyone knows, it’s a challenging and spooky time in our industry, but I hope that it wouldn't dissuade anyone from joining it because it is just such an incredible industry filled with unbelievably smart and talented people, and we would all be lucky to have anyone else who wants to join us.
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