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Mike Schur

Things Mike Says on Podcasts

Where to Find Them

Mike Schur has been a guest on 99% Invisible and The Indicator (Planet Money) .

Recently: “Where did all the sitcoms go?” on The Indicator (Planet Money) (November 2026); “The Power Broker #6: Mike Schur” on 99% Invisible (June 2024).

What They Said

“If you make a new show and you build a set, in the old days you would spend $3 million on your set, but you spread that cost out over 22 episodes. Well, it's not that much per episode to have that set. Now you're only spreading it over eight episodes.” — Mike Schur, The Indicator (Planet Money)

The hosts had explained that streamers order far fewer episodes per season, which raises the cost of each one. Schur gives the concrete example of a single set.

The Indicator (Planet Money) · 2026-11-10 Permalink → Listen →
The Indicator (Planet Money) Around 04:17 into the episode
Waylon Wong

This actually raises production costs because of an accounting principle called amortization.

Ricky Mulvey

And this is when a business spreads out the cost of a big purchase. Fewer episodes means there's less room to spread.

Mike Schur

You know, if you make a new show and you build a set, in the old days, you would build a set, you would spend $3 million on your set, but you spread that cost out over 22 episodes. Well, it's not that much per episode to have that set. Now you're only spreading it over eight episodes.

Waylon Wong

So this means that TV studios need to find other ways to make money. One being selling distribution overseas.

Mike Schur

The world is now almost completely open. And as a result, the studios need, in order to make the amounts of money, the gobs of money they're trying to make, they have to sell their shows everywhere.

Ricky Mulvey

And comedy is cultural.

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.
“What is funny in one country is not necessarily funny in another. You know what does travel? Cops chasing bad guys. So when you're trying to sell a show overseas that has to be dubbed into another language or has to translate more easily, people understand cops chasing bad guys. They understand murder as a dramatic device.” — Mike Schur, The Indicator (Planet Money)

The hosts explained that studios now need to sell shows worldwide to make their money back, and that comedy is cultural. Schur, a veteran sitcom creator, explains why that tilts the market toward crime dramas.

The Indicator (Planet Money) · 2026-11-10 Permalink → Listen →
The Indicator (Planet Money) Around 04:55 into the episode
Mike Schur

The world is now almost completely open. And as a result, the studios need, in order to make the amounts of money, the gobs of money they're trying to make, they have to sell their shows everywhere.

Ricky Mulvey

And comedy is cultural.

Mike Schur

What is funny in one country is not. Necessarily funny in another. You know what does travel? Cops chasing bad guys. So when you're trying to sell a show overseas that has to be dubbed into another language or has to translate more easily, people understand cops chasing bad guys. They understand murder as a dramatic device. They understand the nuts and bolts of like hour-long dramas just are better overseas.

Waylon Wong

So that is the baseline answer to why we still have a lot of law and order or CSI type shows and not a lot of sitcoms.

Ricky Mulvey

There's also a comedy physics problem. Sitcoms often need a few episodes to gel to find momentum, maybe even a season. Actors learn how to work together. Writers learn how to make their characters funny.

Waylon Wong

Mike says that the streaming world system does not give these kinds of comedies the time they need to experiment and find their footing. Audiences move on quickly. Why should I watch this show versus everything else on Hulu? Or log off and check out Amazon Prime, Netflix, or YouTube.

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.

Collections They Appear In