Success Quote by Dick Wolf

Dick Wolf is calling out a risk-avoidance posture that quietly runs the entertainment business while loudly pretending it doesnt. The line lands because it starts from an unglamorous truth - most shows fail - then pivots to the moral dodge embedded in how executives use that truth. Yes, the batting average is brutal. But hiding behind it to demand guaranteed upside is less realism than rent-seeking: an insistence that creativity behave like a bond, not a bet.

The subtext is an argument about who gets to own uncertainty. Networks and studios love the language of prudence, but Wolf points to the asymmetry: development slates are built on long shots, yet decision-makers increasingly want their downside pre-insured by the rare breakout hits. In other words, take the cultural prestige and potential windfall of bold programming, but structure the economics so the risk lands on someone else - creators, smaller producers, even audiences stuck with safer, recycled formulas.

Context matters because Wolf isnt theorizing from the margins. He is the architect of one of TVs most reliable franchises, a producer who has delivered precisely the kind of "few successful shows" that subsidize everything else. That vantage point gives the critique an edge: if even the guy who cracked the code is saying the industry is getting cowardly, its not just artists whining about gatekeepers. Its a warning about an ecosystem that, by trying to eliminate risk, may be eliminating the conditions that produce the next hit in the first place.