Pop TV President Brad Schwartz Explains Why They Wanted ‘One Day at a Time’ Despite It Not Being the “Best Deal”

In 2013 Netflix made streaming history by reviving Arrested Development, a beloved comedy that was canceled too soon. Six years later and the tides have turned: Pop TV has saved an adored Netflix gem from cancellation, One Day at a Time.

During an event at the Television Critics Association’s 2019 summer tour, Decider spoke exclusively to President of Pop TV Brad Schwartz about what went into securing the rights to One Day at a Time from Netflix. He also spoke about what it was like to see cult darling Schitt’s Creek, which has secured four Emmy nominations including one for Outstanding Comedy Series, finally get the awards attention it deserves. For Pop TV, it’s not about throwing money and resources at as many shows as possible. It’s about investing heavily in an audience’s favorite show.

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DECIDER: What went into the decision to pick up One Day at a Time?

BRAD SCHWARTZ: As soon as we heard that Netflix was canceling it, our first reaction was, ‘Oh my god, that’s such a Pop show.’ There’s so many reasons to like that show that are the same reasons why people like Schitt’s Creek. It can make you laugh. It can make you cry. It deals with love and acceptance and inclusion. It’s not afraid to tackle really important topics but do it in a really smart and heartfelt way. We were just like, ‘All those things that made Schitt’s Creek so successful for us, this show — this very different show — has a lot of that same emotion to it. So we were like, could we possibly get it? And then we went after it.

Was it difficult getting the contract figured out?

Yeah. I mean, obviously we don’t have Netflix money. We don’t have $15 billion, so there’s always that challenge. There’s so much love and passion for that show, and that love and passion drove us to reach as far as we could reach. But that love and passion on Sony’s behalf allowed them to stretch as far as they could to try and make it happen. It really was one of those rare situations in our industry where everybody did what was best for the show.

This is not the best deal for Sony. This is not the best deal for Pop. This was just a lot of people in love with the show who wanted to keep it going, and with the support of CBS and David Nevins, my new boss, we figured out a way.

That’s so lovely. And it speaks to something I think Pop does really well is you take chances on weird shows and you invest in fan bases. Can you speak about that a bit?

I wish I just asked you the question and that was the answer. That was great. It’s so true. When you are an emerging network, when you’re a network that people aren’t necessarily used to going to, you better have a damn good reason for them to want to come to you, Right? When you’re on a bigger network and you have some other show that’s leading into you, sometimes mediocrity can flourish. But no one is going to do all the work it takes to go to Pop or find Pop for mediocre. So we need to find things that are going to be somebody’s favorite show. We can’t be 5 million people’s OK show. We need to be 500,000 people’s favorite show.

I think there are many more than 500,000… there are people where Schitt’s Creek is their favorite show. There are people where One Day at a Time is their favorite show. When we have a favorite show, you’re going to find them. And so you’re right, investing in fandom is an interesting way of saying it, but just knowing that we have to put stuff on that people are so emotionally connected to, they’re going to do whatever it takes to go find it.

Have you seen an increase in viewership since Schitt’s Creek landed on Netflix? The Netflix effect, if you will?

We’ve invested a lot of marketing money in the show over five years. It has an outsized proportion of our attention, of our marketing budgets, of our PR. You have the whole company working for you when you’re a network’s No. 1 show, much like maybe Mad Men was back in the day with AMC. All the attention of the network is on Mad Men. So we’re getting the cast on all the late night talk shows. We’re getting the cast on all the daytime talk shows. We’re getting them in Vanity Fair. So if you’ve heard of the show, you’ve heard of the show because of something we did to market it or to have somebody find it or to have somebody talk about it and tell someone else about it.

Once people wanted to watch it, we knew that we had to have it be in as many places as possible. And Netflix is just wonderfully convenient. So many people are there. It’s a wonderful experience. It’s ad-free, blah, blah, blah, all those things. So the fact that you can go catch up on it on Netflix certainly helped people. But if you’ve heard of it, there’s an easy place for you to go and fall in love with it. But it’s also on iTunes; you can go buy it. It’s also on demand. We have all five seasons on our app. We have all five seasons on our VOD. We have all of it on Netflix. It’s on the Roku channel. On Sunday, you’re going to hear an announcement that it’s going to another CBS platform [Note: it was later announced that Schitt’s Creek will also stream on CW Seed]. We did all those deals. Netflix pays us for the show, so that was all part of our way of trying to build an audience for what we knew was a special show and maybe we couldn’t have gotten everybody to come Pop for it. I don’t care if we were just standing on the sidewalk handing out DVDs, I just wanted people to see it.

It is a really special show. It’s interesting that it came to Netflix because I feel like its base has grown through Netflix during a time when Netflix seems to be canceling shows after two or three seasons. And you guys invested really really hard in this show for a long time.

Again, that comes from maybe being the No. 1 show on a smaller network is better than being the No. 8 show on a bigger network. The love and the passion that we’ve had for that show, and the creative freedom that the show has, has allowed them to build the show that they want. Maybe we wouldn’t have had this show if it was noted to death. Maybe we wouldn’t have had this show if there were rating pressures on it. You don’t know. Everything happened exactly the way it should have happened. And maybe if we had done a $10 million marketing campaign in season one and if it was on FX and they just jammed it down people’s throats, maybe it wouldn’t become the show it was today. Who knows? What I know is that it’s been a really fun ride with some creatively brilliant people who made a great show.

That kind of care you’re talking about and the investment you’re talking about, that speaks well to One Day at a Time’s future on your network.

It’s the same, same thing: a show that we love, a show that will get the entire network’s support, a show that you can be proud of. No matter what the ratings are, it’s a show to be proud of. It deals with such important topics in such a lovely and clever way. So, yeah, we’ll have the sixth season of Schitt’s Creek. We’ll have the fourth season of One Day at a Time. It’s a good network to build around.

Schitt’s Creek finally got some nominations… Overdue, but it happened. How do you feel about that?

Over the moon. You just look at the nominees in the best drama and best comedy categories and it’s Netflix, HBO, Showtime, FX, and then Pop! It’s just magical. We’ve had this amazing team, a small, scrappy, really innovative and hardworking team. We’re a team of people who know that you might be able to outspend us but you won’t outwork us. And it’s such a lovely thing for the creators of the show. But it’s also such a wonderful thing for every employee at Pop because we’ve all loved and supported this show for so long that it’s literally like ‘Close the office and go drink.’ It is such an amazing moment for us and just such a testament to everyone’s hard work. We couldn’t be more proud.

This interview has been editing for clarity and length.

Where to stream One Day at a Time

Where to stream Schitt's Creek