Advertising is the art of the tiny. You have to tell a complete a story and deliver a complete message in a very encapsulated form. It disciplines you to cut away extraneous information.
Dick Wolf

And the consumer doesn't care. They don't watch networks, they watch TV shows.
Dick Wolf

As soon as you become complacent your show gets canceled.
Dick Wolf

Drama or comedy programming is still the surest way for advertisers to reach a mass audience. Once that changes, all bets are off.
Dick Wolf

Everybody knows things are not the same. The people running the TV end of a major vertically integrated company know how much money a successful show can make.
Dick Wolf

I do love television. But the business is accelerating and people are not getting the chance to fail.
Dick Wolf

I don't think you can really make television based on what you think audiences want. You can only make stories that you like, because you have to watch it so many times.
Dick Wolf

I get bored with establishing shots of people getting out of cars and walking into buildings, getting into elevators and then 45 seconds later they have a line.
Dick Wolf

I hardly see myself as a futurist.
Dick Wolf

I think most people don't react well to being screamed at. It's counterproductive.
Dick Wolf


I try to just communicate what I want done as clearly and simply as possible.
Dick Wolf

I was raised not to be rude, but I also try to get the best work out of people.
Dick Wolf

I would say that if you really wished to be a working member of the community, don't go out on strike because then there's no work and no potential of work.
Dick Wolf

If the scripts are not good, I'll tell somebody, 'This isn't good.'
Dick Wolf

If you're going to vote on a television contract, there is a certain rationality to saying that the same structures that are applied to Health Plan participation should be placed on the right to vote on a strike.
Dick Wolf

It was like in Samoa when they'd put up a movie screen on the beach and show movies and the locals would run behind the sheet to see where the people went. It was pretty grim.
Dick Wolf

It's show business. No show, no business.
Dick Wolf

People do have viewing patterns, and you disrupt those at your own peril. That's something that everybody learned after 1988. The numbers have gone down every year since that strike. Big time.
Dick Wolf

People recognize certain things, like 'D' means 'this dialogue stinks.' We're dealing with shows that are written here, shot in New York and posted back here. Accurate communication is a necessity.
Dick Wolf

The ad revenues still go up because nothing dependably delivers the eyeballs that successful series do.
Dick Wolf