Photograph by Michel GAILLARD/REA/Redux

People have often compared network television to sausage, in that nobody would want to see how either one is made. The National Sausage Council takes great issue with that comparison, and, as its official spokesperson, I’d like to set the record straight: the manner in which sausages are made bears absolutely no resemblance to the way network television shows are made.

The sausage-making process begins each year in July, when executives from the four major sausage companies gather at resorts in Southern California to discuss what kinds of sausage they should produce for the public. (Obviously there are other sausage-makers out there—Hormel Breakfast Operations, or HBO, comes immediately to mind—but we’re focussing on the Big Four traditional providers.)

The executives who attend these weekend retreats represent both sides of the sausage industry: those who develop new sausages and those who oversee the sausages that are currently on the market.

These “development” and “current” sausage executives use various methodologies to try to divine what the public will want to consume over the next year. For example, one executive might say, “I read an article in the Times Styles section about ducks!” And another might say, “I read that article, too!” And a third will say, “That must mean that it’s a thing people all over the country are talking about!” And, the next thing you know, duck sausage is in the pipeline. Or perhaps the president of a sausage-making company will say, “My daughter’s private-school class has a pet pig—something about sustainability, I don’t know. ... Anyway, she loves it.” And everyone will nod and agree that pork sausage is no longer a thing people want. Another strategy is to examine which sausage is popular in England and just remake that.

After the retreats have set the sausage-development agenda, it’s time for the companies to meet with the people who actually think up the recipes. These recipe “writers” come in and pitch their ideas—new and exciting combinations of ingredients, inspired by life experience and the passion to create that drove them to sausage-making instead of law school. “That’s really interesting,” they will be told by the sausage-development executives, “but we’re not doing pork this year. Can you just make it duck instead?” Inspired by their kids’ tuition payments and a passion for the occasional spa weekend, the writers then set about integrating these “notes” into their recipe pitches, recipe outlines, revised recipe outlines, and recipe drafts.

By the end of the year, the sausage makers have received all of the recipes that the writers have developed, and it is at this point that they must select the few that will actually be produced and tested. “Boy, there’s a lot of duck in these,” the development executives may say, reading the recipes. “Looking at it now, perhaps too much duck.” And, just like that, many recipes will be tossed out. Or: “We discovered this person’s recipe on YouTube ... well not this recipe, something different, that had pork in it. But she has a hundred thousand Twitter followers and we’re really excited to see what happens.” And, like that, a recipe is chosen.

Samples of the chosen sausages are then ordered, and now the race is on for each sausage to be filled with the finest ingredients (among those available to be in a Big Four sausage—some prime cuts are held back for, say, the HBO sausages) that haven’t already been snatched up for a competing recipe and, preferably, that have the flavor of Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

These sample sausages are flown to Las Vegas in airplanes operated by pilots— hence, they are referred to as “pilots.” Ordinary people are then pulled from sidewalks and brought into testing facilities to sample the pilots, because, while the sausage makers have their own sense of taste, nothing beats the collective wisdom of people who wear their sunglasses backwards on their necks when they’re indoors.

With the data from the pilot testing in hand, the sausage makers hunker down to make the last and most important decision: which sausages will be pushed into production. Some will become classics, beloved by young and old. Others, despite all of the research and notes and testing, confoundingly will not. They will be called “flops,” “derivative crap,” or “unwatchable meat.” But, regardless of what they become, I hope I’ve made it clear that the process of their becoming is wholly separate from however network television is made. I don’t know anything about that. I don’t even own a TV.