Television producer Craig Piligian founded Pilgrim Films and Television in 1997. Piligian, who began his career in the news business, first became a producer of non-scripted programming in 1991, with the shows Emergency Call and Real Stories of the Highway Patrol. With more than 625 episodes produced, Real Stories became the first successful launch and sustained production of a syndicated reality strip.
Initially, Pilgrim Films and Television focused on producing documentary programming for the Discovery Channel. An early special on the inner workings of the Central Intelligence Agency (Inside the CIA) did so well for the network that it commissioned from Pilgrim many more specials on the subject, including the highly rated CIA Files, CIA Magic, and CIA Secrets.
In 1999, with Pilgrim still fully entrenched in producing projects for Discovery, Piligian segued into producing a new kind of reality show when he served as co-executive producer on CBS’s mega-hit, Survivor. Shooting for three months in the jungles of a remote island off the coast of Malaysian Borneo was worth it, as 55 million viewers tuned in for the finale of Survivor I, giving CBS its biggest non-sporting audience ever. Piligian went on to produce the show’s second season in Australia, and its third in Africa.
In 2001, Pilgrim acquired the highly sought-after rights to Chronicle Books’ best-selling how-to manual, “The Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook,” and in 2002 the company produced the series Worst Case Scenario for TBS. Hosted by a then-relatively-unknown Mike Rowe, the show followed people who set out to face their worst fears, with stunt men also re-enacting death-defying situations.
Pilgrim continued to produce series and specials for Discovery, including Discovery Channel World Championship Adventure Race (2001), a documentary that tracked teams competing in an extreme, six-day multi-sport race; and Covert Action (2002), which delved into real CIA case files detailing top-secret, anti-terrorist missions.
The company went on to produce some of Discovery’s most successful and longest- running series, including American Chopper (2003), which tracks the daily tensions, tirades and triumphs of a father and son team who run a business creating custom motorbike masterpieces (the series premiered on Discovery in 2003, and in 2007 moved to Discovery’s sister channel, TLC); American Hot Rod (2004), which provided an inside look at the life and work of the late Boyd Coddington as he and his team raced to complete their classic cars; and American Casino (2004), taking viewers behind the scenes at the Green Valley Ranch hotel and casino, minutes away from the Las Vegas strip.
Pilgrim also produces for Discovery the ultra-popular Dirty Jobs, featuring host Mike Rowe. Launched in 2005, the series is in its fourth season on Discovery, with more than 100 episodes produced. In 2008, the show received an Emmy nomination for Best Reality Program.
Pilgrim also produced the series Cupid for CBS in 2003, a relationship show that challenged America to find the perfect mate for one eligible young woman.
In 2004, the company began producing for SCI FI Channel the hit series Ghost Hunters, which introduced viewers to Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson – plumbers by day and Ghost Hunters by night. The two head up TAPS (The Atlantic Paranormal Society), a close-knit group of volunteers – ordinary citizens who attempt to help debunk claims of otherworldly activity. From its series debut, the show has built its audience year over year, leading to its best season premiere ever in September 2008, with 2.7 million total viewers, representing double-digit growth over its prior-season premiere (March 2008).
In 2005, Pilgrim began producing the series The Ultimate Fighter for Spike TV. The series performed so well, it impacted what had been a rather obscure fringe sport – mixed martial arts (MMA) – helping it grow into today’s multi-billion dollar industry. With Spike’s current episode commitment, The Ultimate Fighter is slated to air well into season 12.
In April of 2008, an episode of Ghost Hunters featuring a special investigation at a U.S. Air Force base attracted 1.8 million viewers in the Adults 24-54 demographic, the best ever for a Sci-Fi original reality series telecast. Also popular with female viewers, Ghost Hunters’ fifth season scored the highest viewership for any SCI FI original series ever in the Women 18-49 and Women 25-54 demographics.
This led to the spin-off series Ghost Hunters International, which Pilgrim also produces for SCI FI. The show debuted in January 2008 and averaged two million viewers per episode. When it returned in July, the series realized double-digit growth across all demographics. Ghost Hunters International returns to SCI FI Channel with 25 new episodes in 2009. Additionally, Pilgrim is producing the next Ghost Hunters spin-off series for SCI FI: Ghost Hunters: College Edition, which premieres in 2010.
Because of the success of all of these series, in 2008 Craig Piligian forged a new deal with SCI FI, through which he will produce a new original series to debut on the channel in 2010.
From ghostly occurrences to ghastly weather patterns, Pilgrim produced the series Greensburg in 2008 for Discovery’s fledgling network, Planet Green. After a massive tornado leveled the town of Greensburg, Kansas in 2007, Pilgrim teamed with Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way to produce a show chronicling the rebuilding of the town based on principles of economic and environmental sustainability. Greensburg premiered on Planet Green in June 2008, with season two debuting strong in May 2009.
Pilgrim also produces the extremely popular My Fair Wedding for WEtv – in production on season two – in which celebrity wedding and event planner David Tutera rescues weddings headed for disaster and turns them into platinum-style affairs.
In May 2009, the Pilgrim-produced Out of the Wild: The Alaska Experiment also premiered on Discovery. The show follows the experience of nine strangers who agreed to abandon the comforts of home in order to test their physical and mental limits in the Alaskan wilderness. Given no food, and armed with just three days of training and a few wilderness essentials, the only “prize” for the winner is the satisfaction of having survived.
Additionally for Discovery, Pilgrim produces Destroyed in Seconds, featuring clips of the most amazing accidents, explosions and stunts ever caught on tape (season two returns in 2009); Swamp Logging; and Extreme Peril, the companion show to Destroyed in Seconds, premiering in June 2009.
For The CW Pilgrim produced the series In Harm’s Way, hosted by former Navy fighter pilot and Emmy-winner Hunter Ellis. The show follows the lives of those who put themselves at risk to do critical yet life-threatening jobs, such as war photographers, oil well cappers, Coast Guard divers, mine sweepers and others. Other series include Sandhogs (History Channel), which takes viewers below the streets of New York to meet the urban miners who build the city’s underground infrastructure of water and sewage tunnels, subway systems and bridge footings; Rocco Gets Real (A&E), which brings celebrity chef Rocco DiSpirito into the homes of real people planning an important meal or event; and Doing Da Vinci (Discovery) which takes the original designs for various inventions envisioned by the great artist and constructs and tests them for viability, determining whether Leonardo Da Vinci was an engineer ahead of his time, or merely a prolific dreamer.
