A One-Page TV Series Business Plan
Put your TV series business plan in nine blocks with the Content Model Canvas (the Canvas), the one-page business plan for your film, series or game. Its blocks hold what buyers want to know about a show, from who watches to how it pays.
Strong Concept, Open Questions
A series can arrive with a sharp concept, a world and characters people want to follow. Then a producer, a buyer or a platform turns to the business, and the concept alone has no answer to give:
- Who will watch it, and where it will live
- Why viewers come back after the first episode
- How it pays for itself, and who partners on it
What a One-Page Series Business Plan Holds
A TV drama, a streaming series and a web series fit on the same nine blocks: only the answers change. Fill them in for the show as a whole, from what keeps viewers watching to how each season gets made, sold and paid for.
Value Propositions
What the show gives viewers and buyers: a world, characters worth following and a reason to watch the next episode.
Audience / Client
The viewers you make the show for, and the clients who pay for it: broadcasters, streaming platforms or a studio.
Channels
How the show reaches its viewers and its buyers: series markets, a broadcast slot, a streaming catalog or YouTube.
Customer Relationships
How viewers find the show and stay with it, from the trailer to the finale, and how you keep its buyers close.
Key Activities
What it takes to get the show made: development, financing, the writers' room, the shoot and post-production.
Key Partners
Who you need on board: a production company, co-producers, funds and a distributor for sales abroad.
Key Resources
What the show depends on: the pilot script and the bible, their rights, the writers, the cast and the locations.
Cost Structure
Where the money goes: development, the writers' room, cast and crew, locations, post-production and delivery.
Revenue Streams
Where the money comes from: license fees, co-production money, funds and tax credits, then sales abroad.
A Filled Example for a Drama Series
We filled in the Canvas for a drama series we made up, to show how much fits in each block and how specific the answers can get. Use it as a reference for your own show, not as answers to copy.
Fallow Creek
Rural family drama series (fictional)
When a dairy farmer sells her herd and decides to let the family land go back to the wild, her grown children come home to stop her, and the fight over the farm reopens every old wound in the family.
Value Propositions
- A family fight over a farm, with no easy side to take
- Rewilding as a family story, not a lecture
- A conflict that renews itself season after season
- Farm country as it really is, through the year
Audience / Client
- Viewers: fans of family dramas with a strong setting
- Viewers: rural and farming communities
- Viewers: people drawn to stories about nature
- Clients: a public broadcaster, then a streaming platform
Channels
- Pilot and bible shown at a series market
- Weekly broadcast on a public channel
- Every episode on the broadcaster's streaming app
- Broadcasters and platforms abroad, via a distributor
Customer Relationships
- A weekly release that keeps the talk going
- Clips from the farm between episodes
- Premiere screenings at agricultural fairs
- A companion podcast with the cast and real farmers
Key Activities
- Write the pilot and the series bible
- Attach a showrunner, then pitch to broadcasters
- Run the writers' room for the first season
- Shoot in blocks on a working farm, spring to fall
Key Partners
- A production company with drama experience
- A co-producer abroad who shares cost and rights
- A distributor for sales to other countries
- The farm owners and a rewilding charity
Key Resources
- The pilot script, the series bible and their rights
- The showrunner and the writers' room
- A working farm open to the crew all year
- A cast that can carry several seasons
Cost Structure
- Pilot script, bible and pitch materials
- The writers' room for the whole season
- Cast and crew for each shooting block
- Farm location fees, animals and handlers
- Post-production, music and delivery
Revenue Streams
- License fee from the commissioning broadcaster
- Co-production money from the partner abroad
- Tax credits and the regional production fund
- Sales abroad through the distributor
- A later license to a streaming platform
Adapted from The Business Model Canvas (opens in a new tab) by Strategyzer AG (strategyzer.com (opens in a new tab)), licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 (opens in a new tab).
Want to start on paper? Print the free film business plan template (PDF): the nine blocks are the same for a series, filled in for the show as a whole.
How the Canvas Feeds Your Pitch Package
A series is usually pitched with a logline, a series bible and a pitch deck. The Canvas is not a pitch deck or a series bible, and it does not replace them. It is the plan behind them, on one page, and it feeds all three:
Logline
The sentence that sells the show. Value Propositions and Audience / Client give it a promise and a viewer.
Series Bible
The world, the characters and where the seasons go. The Canvas keeps it pointed at the viewers the show is for.
Pitch Deck
Its slides on audience, platforms, partners and money can be built from the Canvas, block by block.
With the Canvas filled in, the logline, the bible and the deck all describe the same show.
Learn How to Pitch a TV SeriesFrom Concept to Plan
The example shows what a filled Canvas looks like. Yours will come from your own show, and the Content Model Canvas tutorial helps you build it:
- The nine blocks in order, each with questions to ask yourself and practical tips
- Your own canvas, saved section by section and ready to download as a PDF
- A map of the Canvas that shows how the blocks connect
- Bonus files, including a blank Canvas (PPTX) to fill in on screen and the tutorial (PDF)
Frequently Asked Questions
No. The Canvas is the one-page plan behind them. It feeds your logline, your series bible and the slides of your pitch deck on audience, platforms, partners and money.
For the show as a whole. The nine blocks describe the series and how each season gets made, sold and paid for, not a single episode.
Yes. A TV drama, a streaming series and a web series fit on the same nine blocks: only the answers change.