Product placement and overstaffing of digital divisions are hurdles for television producers and creators as they craft extensions of their shows, said Tim Kring. The executive producer and showrunner of NBC’s “Heroes” took part in a panel discussion Wednesday at NATPE's LATV Festival in Hollywood.

“At NBC you have this giant corporate, vertically integrated company, and what ends up happening is the digital division at NBC had seven people a few years ago and then three weeks later there were 67 people and there was this giant mandate from GE to put a lot of eggs into the digital basket,” he said.

“What wound up happening once the corporate entity took hold on the TV show and now 67 people in this job want to feel they are controlling this … the big fear for us is that when that material and content start to be generated by people who are outside the main or inner core of the creative force of a show, you have all sorts of pitfalls and things that can go wrong," Mr. Kring said. "You throw a little bit of sponsorship and product placement into the show and you have a recipe for all kinds of serious problems.”

Sounds like he's worried about what the handful of sponsors are going to do to his show. It wouldn't be the first time the creator lost control and watched his "baby" destroyed by sponsors...