How to Be Seen: What it Takes to Get Your Animation on Television

A few weeks ago a reader wrote in to ask me what one has to do to have one's program aired on TV in the U.S.; it's taken me a while to come up with an answer for that, because when you think about it, television kind of seems to just happen, based on decisions made in a realm far out of the reach of you and I. It all seems like an insider secret, and here we are on the outside, banging on the doors trying to get in, trying to be part of the loop.

It's a difficult thing, I will say that. Hundreds are rejected daily, and those who are accepted into that "inner circle" may find that it just happened right under their noses with startling ease, or that it took months or years of painstaking effort to get there. There are a variety of roads that you can take to try to get on TV, and after a great deal of thought I've written down a few approaches.