Don't Quit Your Day Job...until June

Despite this down economy, over the next few months, choruses of "I quits!" will be heard in restaurants, bars, and offices from California to New York.

The reason?  Two words:  Pilot season.

It's the time of year when swarms of actors - aspiring and established - descend upon LaLa Land to audition for the shows that are in broadcast network contention to beam into your homes come Fall.  And as news of casting decisions trickle in, thespians thrilled to bid au revoir to less than desirable non-acting positions, will eagerly run far and fast from the shackles of job security into the open arms of The Big Break.

This traditionally January to April period is the busiest and most anticipated time of year in the television business.  And it's also the most nerve-wracking for anyone on the creative side, whose career fates are in the hands of the network executives deciding what will be a go and what will be a no-show.

The Museum of Broadcast Communications estimates that in the months leading up to pilot season, for a given network, approximately 300 shows are pitched, 50 are commissioned for scripts, and then a fraction of those will be moved into development.

Consider the stats for ABC's 2009/2010 season:  According to TheFutonCritic.com's annual "DevWatch" list, ABC (often referred to as "The Alphabet" in the trades) had 34 shows in development of which 21 received a pilot order, meaning they are cast and filmed for consideration by the aforementioned network "suits."

Of those, just 8 were "picked up" to be added to the upcoming season's programming lineup:  The Middle, Cougar Town, Happy Town, The Deep End, Flash Forward, The Forgotten, V, and Modern Family.

Those odds make it easy to see why booking a pilot isn't exactly a license to sell the farm.

Interestingly enough, neither is getting the news that you're pilot's been "picked-up."

"This really ominous thing happens," says actress Nadia Dajani, "The pickups happen in the middle of May, but they have until the middle of June to pick up your contract.  And that's called Firing Season. I know many actors that have celebrated and done all the press for the upfronts in New York and they got fired four weeks later and replaced."

As it turns out, actors should probably hold off on the cartwheels and job-quitting when news of a mid-May "pick-up" rolls in.  And hang on to the farm, you might need something to fall back on in case the back-nine order fails to come through.