10 Stories You Should Know: 09/20/2022

It's an odd news day.

Here is a rundown of the stories that should be on your radar this morning:

Broadcasters Will Sacrifice Premium Cable Brands To Get Massive Scale Now (NScreen Media)
For decades, TV viewers rated the broadcast brands ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox in the top 8 channels, making them must-haves among the hundreds of cable channels available. Broadcasters assumed the brands would carry the same weight and value in the streaming world. Unfortunately for them, they don’t.

Without massive streaming scale, broadcasters cannot hope to earn anything like what they do from traditional television. Paramount+ earns at most $130 million a month in subscription revenue in the US, while CBS channels alone generate twice as much from traditional pay TV license fees.

Brian Reich Dies: ‘Late Night With Conan O’Brien’ Writer Was 53 (Deadline)
Brian Reich, a veteran comedy writer known for his work on Late Night With Conan O’Brien where he created such memorable characters as Masturbating Bear and Pimpbot 5000, died in Los Angeles. He was 53.

How SkyShowtime’s CEO Aims To Shake Up The European Streaming Landscape (The Hollywood Reporter)
What distinguishes us most is that we were created for Europe, we were created for these over 20 markets. We are not a flyover service. These markets are not an afterthought, these markets are all we think about. We start with the consumer in mind. That is how we think about the world. And we think about these markets. And that exhibits itself in everything we do. We have six offices throughout our region. We have local teams throughout the region. Those teams encompass people on the business side – distribution, marketing, content. We want everything we do to be relevant and meaningful. And so especially on the content side, there is huge demand for American content and huge demand for European content. Local content is tremendously important. As I said, representation matters. And so we are ramping up our team to get into the originals business very quickly.

”Netflix Should Do A Deal With Cinema To Survive,” Says Wild Bunch International’s Vincent Maraval (Screen Daily)
“The chance of Netflix is cinema,” he added. “If Netflix wants to survive against better capitalised companies like Amazon, Apple, their chance is to do a deal with cinema. Of course, today in France, people are complaining about Netflix because it’s American – France always has that kind of defiance. Netflix is our chance, if it moves and changes.”

Vikas Khanna, Ranveer Brat, Garima Arora To Judge 'MasterChef India' (Outlook India)
Based on 'MasterChef Australia', it started in India in 2010 and the first season was hosted by Akshay Kumar, Kunal Kapur and Ajay Chopra. Apart from Hindi, the show also aired in different languages like Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam and the past six seasons were judged by different master chefs including Vikas Khanna, Sanjeev Kapoor, Ranveer Brar, Zorawar Kalra and Vineet Bhatia.

With Netflix Hit ‘Intimacy,’ Disney+’s ‘Balenciaga,’ Basque Country Founds Premium TV Sector (Variety)
Leading Basque production company Irusoin backed “Suro” and is producing Disney+’s most notable TV project in Spain, “Balenciaga.” “It makes perfect sense; Disney wanted to make it here because the character and the story originate from the region,” says Irusoin producer Xabi Berzosa who has observed an already crowded market with three to four shoots happening simultaneously, including The Mediapro Studio’s “Pelotaris.” 

Netflix Allocated Money For The Development Of Scripts For 48 Ukrainian Films And Series (Mezha)
The Ukrainian Film Academy selected 48 projects that will receive Netflix funding for script creation. A total of 717 projects participated in the program – 57 documentaries, 190 game series and 370 feature films. The initiative of the Netflix Fund for Creative Equity and the Ukrainian Film Academy is designed to help Ukrainian artists in Ukraine and around the world who have suffered or been displaced by the war.

48 Ukrainian teams consisting of a producer and a screenwriter will receive grants in the amount of $15,000 for script development, as well as the opportunity to join exclusive online sessions with international industry experts.

French-U.S. Firm Zag Launches Streaming Content Unit And Sets Fantasy Superhero Toon ‘Fairyon’ As First Project (Deadline)
The 13-part show will follow Rapunzel as a princess in search of truth and justice. Helping her in the quest are a team of legendary superheroes — Little Red Riding Hood, Aladdin, Gretel, Cinderella, and Jack — who unite their magical powers to prevent a Mysterious Knight from freeing the most terrible of adversaries imprisoned in a Magic Mirror.

DStv Adding Disney+ To Subscriber Bills Without Permission (My Broadband South Africa)
MyBroadband asked MultiChoice and Walt Disney Africa for comment on the apparent incorrect add-ons, but neither were able to provide feedback by the time of publication.

DStv is no stranger to billing problems, with the company’s Hellopeter page filled with claims of incorrect charges on customer accounts almost daily.

A MyBroadband employee recently got first-hand experience of this when his old EasyView package, cancelled three years ago, was reactivated and money deducted from his bank account.