TV Wasteland: Making Space for Gen Z in Hollywood

In an industry run by executives 30 years above us, TV Wasteland provides a refreshing perspective on all things pop culture for young adults, by young adults. Ran by CEO Ryan Flaherty, a freshman college student, TV Wasteland is now entering its third year of providing this generation with news, interviews, and industry insider knowledge of all things TV. 

Since television’s beginnings, rountables, press junctions, and red carpet interviews have been overrun with adults covering teen events, trying to figure out what Gen Z wants. Flaherty knew that something needed to change if she wanted to get honest and qualified coverage of the shows she loved. What started as wishful thinking suddenly turned into a rapidly successful organization. Within less than a year, TV Wasteland grew from three highschoolers to a team of 25. 

At 16 Flaherty knew she wanted to get involved in television “I just felt like I was overflowing with passion for the industry and I created a binder where I wrote handwritten notes on every single show that was being ordered on every single network and I was like there’s got to be some way I could turn this into something” she said. 

After searching for internships and ways to break into the business indirectly, the idea then dawned on her to make her own website. What started as a fun after school project to share her love of pop culture with friends quickly turned into a one of a kind media outlet sharing reviews and interviews about TV for teens by teens. 

Planning launch dates and setting up social media accounts in her physics class, Flaherty and founding partner Matt Gannon, current director of talent relations, set out to create TV Wasteland. The launch was a “very slow process'' until Flaherty got invited to Series Fest in Denver, Colorado after applying for a press pass on a whim. 

Strapped with her ten dollar microphone and no industry contacts, Flaherty flew out to Colorado and the rest she says is history. 

On top of gaining experience and networking at Series Fest, Flaherty explained that her confidence grew as she published articles on her site and she learned that she needed to ask for what she wanted. After getting the opportunity to be thrown into the world of TV and journalism, Flaherty said that it was then at Series Fest that she felt she truly “made it”. 

Flaherty notes that what she thinks made TV Wasteland such a success what the gap in the market “you have these enormous companies like Teen Vogue, Euphoria Zine, Interview Mag who all interview the best of the industry and there is not middle ground for the teen stars who are on shows that people love that aren't really getting any recognition. I think the most important part of TV Wasteland is that we are interviewing majority teenagers. We are teenagers so we know what questions to ask. Rather than somebody who is older and doesn't really know what’s going on. We know to ask about balancing school and work because we know what school is like. School already takes up a lot of your time and it certainly takes up a lot more when you're on a Netflix show”.  

From interviews with Euphoria exec Kathleen McCaffrey and Never Have I Ever actress Maitreyi Ramakrishnan to TV Wasteland original projects like “TV Tracks” and “Pitch Deck” the site has continued to create a dynamic resource for anything and everything TV. 

Today, and especially with the COVID 19 Pandemic, TV Wasteland benefited from being strictly online based with staff from all over the country. Additionally, a team of all full time students, stay at home orders awarded the writers and editors at the company more time to work on projects at TV Wasteland as filming had been postponed and actors and creators were able to also free up their schedules. 

TV Wasteland isn’t training the next executives and creatives for Hollywood, they’re already there. 

Announced on June first, Flaherty will be stepping down as CEO of TV Wasteland in order to focus on upcoming projects and her education at Emerson College in Boston where she is studying Business of Creative Enterprises. Her partner Gannon will be taking her place as CEO and will definitely be moving forward to a bright future with TV Wasteland with new social media campaigns and working with bigger and bigger studios and industry personnel. 

You can find TV Wasteland at www.tvwasteland.org and on their Instagram and TikTok @TVWaste.