NBC Universal, the American broadcaster behind Law & Order and Heroes, aims to save about $50 million (£26 million) a year by scrapping pilot programmes for drama series because they have become too expensive to make.

The cost of one-episode pilots — which supposedly are designed to avoid flops mid-series — have soared in the past three years from $3 million to $7 million, according to Jeff Zucker, the NBC Universal chief executive.

“You put in loads of extra money and special effects, but not producing the series you get,” he said, adding that even if viewers liked the pilot produced the result was “a totally false positive”, which did not insulate the network from subsequent failures.

Speaking at a round-table event in London, Mr Zucker said: “Three to four series are returning from last fall. How many pilots were made? Around 75. If pilots were meant to stop shows that shouldn’t be airing, well, we went ahead anyway.”

Instead, NBC plans to begin transmitting entire series at normal production budgets, although it can still act quickly to eliminate a flop.

Mr Zucker estimated that the annual profit improvement he could achieve was about $50 million, because some of the money saved from making the annual crop of eight to ten pilots would be spent elsewhere.

Separately, Mr Zucker played down the prospects of a bid for ITV, as it announced the $150 million acquisition of a 26 per cent stake in NDTV, the Indian entertainment broadcaster.

He said: “We’re admirers of ITV, admirers of Michael Grade, but it doesn’t mean we want to spend $8 billion — and I’m aware the figure can change — to acquire ITV.”

Although the company was careful not to rule out the possibility, NBC Universal is under pressure to find assets that will deliver “double-digit growth”.

ITV is contending with declining audiences and a subdued advertising market, with analysts expecting little or no growth in revenues or profits in 2008.

NBC has been cost-cutting over recent years, after the long-time leader sank to fourth of four among the big US networks.

It has cut back the amount of prime-time programming it makes from three hours to two — although in recent months a mini-revival has placed it on a par with Disney’s ABC, CBS and Fox, which is owned by News Corp, parent company of Times Online.

NBC Universal is 80 per cent owned by General Electric, with the remaining 20 per cent held by Vivendi, of France.

Profits last year totalled $3.1 billion, up 6 per cent, with the contribution from NBC’s prime time estimated at 5 per cent of a group that also includes the Universal film studio and the CNBC financial news channel.

Mr Zucker also said he believed that the three-month-old writers' strike would be over “in two weeks”.

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