In the USA TV Pilots are practically mandatory before a new show ever hits screens -but in Australia where it’s far less common, new formats can be crushed in a matter of weeks. So should networks actually invest more money to mount Pilots before a new show hits the screen? That was a question tackled recently at the Screen Forever conference. Ben Ulm, Head of Reality & Factual, ITV Studios Australia said the cost of producing shows in Australia requires that light entertainment shows become stripped across two or three nights. “There’s been some brave decisions made in the last few years where shows are launched on air without the benefit of being developed in other territories. When they fell, they fell badly. There’s no real Off-Broadway in this country. You think of some of the successful original ideas from this country, from