Sep 12, 2025
Systems & Clarity
70+ hours of programming. Six months. No room to hire.
That was the reality facing Lion TV in 2022. The slate was already locked. The deadlines weren’t moving. The budget had no space for more staff.
What Lion needed wasn’t more people. It was a different way to run post.
When “Add More Staff” Doesn’t Work
Every approval ran through email. Every asset and milestone lived in scattered spreadsheets. Editors and coordinators were already stretched thin.
The conventional solution would have been obvious: hire two more post supervisors and six to nine assistant editors. That’s the only way most productions survive a slate this size.
But Lion didn’t have that option. And even if they did, the costs would have ballooned. The show needed to deliver the hours with the same team in place.
Clarity Move: Post-as-a-Service
Instead of throwing more bodies at the problem, Lion deployed SAMEpg as a Post-as-a-Service clarity layer.
That meant:
Approvals routed cleanly. No more buried sign-offs in email.
Deliverables tracked. Nothing slipped between spreadsheets.
Requests ticketed. AEs knew what was due and when.
Timecards automated. Payroll reminders went out on time.
Knowledge base provisioned. Every workflow documented and searchable for staff and freelancers alike.
No new tools. No retraining. SAMEpg provisioned the clarity layer and ran it. The crew just kept working.
Proof in Numbers
The results spoke for themselves:
$2.7 million protected. Savings came from avoided hires, reduced overtime, and fewer late penalties. Money stayed in production instead of vanishing into patchwork fixes.
3× output per staff member. SAMEpg structured workflows let the same editors and coordinators deliver triple what they could have under chaos conditions.
1,000+ hours recovered. Manual chases, missed approvals, and re-exports dropped sharply. That time went back into editing and delivery.
Zero layoffs. Crews stayed intact. Paychecks kept flowing without adding extra hires.
Role-Framed Outcomes
For Lion, the transformation wasn’t just about money. It was about survival without burnout.
Editors: No more chasing cut links or missing scripts. They cut.
Assistant Editors: Clear tickets replaced guesswork. Workloads steadied.
Coordinators: Calendars stopped bottlenecking in one inbox. Approvals and milestones were visible to all.
Executives: Delivery risk surfaced early. The slate ran on schedule without fire drills.
The Real ROI: Paychecks Preserved
The most important outcome wasn’t just the dollars or hours. It was the jobs.
Without a staffed clarity layer, Lion would have needed to hire, burn out, or cut staff. Instead, SAMEpg extended the lifespan of the crew already in place.
That meant:
No layoffs mid-season.
No unpaid overtime.
No emergency hiring spree.
Survival was measured in paychecks that kept landing on time.
Why It Matters Now
Today’s unscripted market is tighter than ever. Orders are smaller, budgets leaner, expectations higher. The math doesn’t work if every schedule slip or missed approval means adding staff you can’t afford.
Lion proved another way: survival through structure, not headcount.
Post isn’t chaos by default. With a staffed clarity layer, it runs clean. And when it runs clean, crews stay intact, budgets hold, and the show delivers.
This wasn’t a one-off. SAMEpg runs the same clarity layer for productions facing impossible slates across the industry.
👉 Explore the Interactive Preview — see what SAMEpg would surface for your shows.
