Too Much TV: I Think We've Seen This Scene In A Few Mobster Movies
The Trump Administration wants more from Paramount Global. And both CNN & MSNBC are missing some viewers.
Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Wednesday, May 28th 2025:
I THINK WE'VE SEEN THIS SCENE IN A FEW MOBSTER MOVIES
If you've ever watched some old black-and-white mobster movies, you've likely come across a scene in which some tough lower-level mobster walks into a neighborhood store hoping to collect that week's protection money. The shopkeeper reluctantly hands over an envelope filled with money. But the mobster glances at it, scowls in anger at the shopkeeper and growls, "Aren't you a little light on this week's insurance?"
That is the scene that come to mind when I read this passage from today's Wall Street Journal coverage of the state of the negotiations between Paramount Global and the Trump Administration over the president's on-going 60 Minutes lawsuit:
Paramount Global in recent days has offered $15 million to settle, according to people familiar with the situation. Trump’s team wants more than $25 million and is also seeking an apology from CBS News, one of the people said.
Trump’s team has threatened another lawsuit against CBS related to alleged bias of its news coverage, according to the people. Wednesday is the deadline for Trump to respond to Paramount’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit.
While the WSJ piece doesn't include it, I've been told the main sticking point isn't the money, it's the apology. The Trump negotiators are apparently insisting on not just a CBS apology, but one delivered on an episode of this fall's new 60 Minutes season. A demand which would likely prompt a mass exodus from the program by reporters and staff.
RATINGS SLUMP HITS MSNBC, CNN
Mediaite had a look today at the May ratings for the big three cable news networks and it's been a brutal period for CNN and MSNBC:
Overall for May, MSNBC dropped 41% in the primetime demo and 34% in the total day demo compared to May of 2024. In total viewers, the network was down 33% across total day and 24% in prime time. MSNBC’s total day demo viewership sank to 49,000 average viewers and 73,000 in prime time – its second worst ever showing for a month behind January of 2025.
Fox News was the only of the big three networks to see year-over-year gains for May, up 21% in total viewers and 22% in total day demo viewers compared to 2024. In prime time, Fox gained 23% in total viewers and was up 32% in the demo.
CNN was down 24% in total day viewers and 27% in the daytime demo, while in prime time the network dropped 18% in total viewers and 21% in the demo. CNN’s prime time average came in at only 426,000 total viewers, compared to Fox News’s 2.5 million viewers and MSNBC’s average of 877,000 viewers.
The fact that year-over-year ratings have slipped on MSNBC in the 7pm timeslot now occupied by Symone Sanders Townsend, Michael Steele, and Alicia Menendez’s panel program The Weeknight and the 9pm occupied by The Briefing With Jen Psaki is not a huge surprise. Change is almost always difficult for viewers and it takes awhile for new shows to find their footing.
It also doesn't help that in both cases, the new shows came into a situation in which the previous hosts were very publicly pushed out (Joy Reid & Alex Wagner).
That being said, while it's true the ratings for both CNN and MSNBC slipped substantially, I would argue they did so for very different reasons. CNN's new "trying to be more non-partisan by hiring more overtly conservative hosts" has proved to be problematic for much of its audience. Network executives point to the increased appearance of clips from the primetime panel show on social media. Although from what I can tell, much of the time the clips are being posted by viewers unhappy with what they're seeing.
MSNBC's challenge is a bit more nuanced. There was a widespread belief at the network that ratings would rise substantially once President Trump took office for his second term. That has so far proved not to be the case, and I think part of the challenge for the network is that a big part of its most-engaged audience - progressives and solid Democratic voters - are still strongly unhappy with what they see as dishonesty by party officials over Joe Biden's cognitive challenges in the lead-up to last fall's election.
Which is bad news for the network, because I've been told that some internally-ordered focus groups showed many viewers see the network's lineup as too tied to the Democratic party establishment and blame some of the on-air talent for pushing back aggressively during the discussions last summer over whether Joe Biden should resign.
That feels like a valid criticism to me and reflects the biggest overall challenge for the network. How does it bring new voices into the on-air conversation that reflect new viewpoints without moving the bar too far to the right? Especially given that MSNBC has a long history of eventually pushing out voices outside the Beltway conventional wisdom.
What do you think? Email me confidentially at rick@allyourscreens.com
ANY WAY YOU LOOK AT IT, PRESS TOURS ARE GETTING MORE CHALLENGING
It was sadly not a surprise that the Television Critics Association's July tour has been canceled, because the more traditional methods of promoting upcoming movies and television shows is seen as less valuable by networks and stars.
But as this piece in Vulture illustrates, while there countless less traditional options, neither publicists nor the stars have a clear sense of what may or may not work:
But if this new reality of celebrity publicity is permanent, the destinations that comprise it are anything but. New shows surface daily. Influencers rise and vanish by the hour. Tomorrow’s buzziest press stop could just as easily be a Twitch streamer — or a ChatGPT bot. Nevertheless, certain trends have emerged. The hosts who anchor these new institutions aren’t “serious” interviewers, at least not in the Terry Gross sense. “I’ve always looked at the show as one that celebrates more than it scrutinizes,” said Hot Ones host Sean Evans on a recent episode of The Town. Which is, in a sense, fine, since “serious interviews” aren’t the point — and it doesn’t mean they can’t extract a headline-making quote or coax out a surprisingly intimate moment. “We think about it in terms of hospitality,” says an executive behind a major celebrity podcast. “We want guests to feel comfortable.” The deal is simple: Show up, have a good time, and ideally, everyone walks away looking good. Sometimes the guest says something revealing. More often, they don’t. Either way, the audience is there for the hang.
"Being there for the hang" is kind of a depressing way to approach covering the industry. And I work every day to try and figure out the best way to talk to celebrities when I am hemmed in on both sides by legacy trade outlets that still have the juice to arrange top-level interviews and mid-level podcasts that are able to convince a star to spend an hour on their show while their publicist is offering a seven-minute junket slot to traditional media outlets.
I've found that I am turning down a lot of interview opportunities because they don't provide enough time for me to have a conversation. And that is the format that works best for me - a lightly edited 15 or 20-minute interview. I think it works better for my readers as well. But the irony of that is that for many celebrities, they're much more comfortable eating wings and answering some casual questions than having a conversation about their craft and their work. I understand why that's the case. But it's frequently frustrating.
Predictably, not everyone is sold on the New Media Circuit. Some are merely skeptical; others are openly hostile: “Don’t fucking talk to me about Hot Ones,” one A-list publicist told me. The reality is that it’s hard to tell if any of it actually moves the needle in name recognition or even ticket sales. “Unless there’s an ‘I am clicking through and buying a ticket’ button on whatever the fuck’s feed, I’m not sold it helps,” another veteran Hollywood publicist says. Yes, there are more metrics than ever — followers, views, streams, engagement rates — but they’re slippery, and no one seems to agree on what counts as impact anymore. In an ecosystem dominated by algorithms, even the most viral press push can feel like a whisper compared to the Netflix homepage or Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlist. If the most powerful recommendation engine is the platform itself, what’s the point of doing press at all?
And that belief in the platform is at the heart of Netflix's approach to the traditional press. Which is passive-aggressive at the very least. Many of the people working at the streamer don't believe TV critics can move the dial. And that belief has become more common in the industry.
That attitude is part of the reason why the daily news feed at any of the big industry trades often reads like a compilation of casting news, premiere dates and random quotes taken from someone else's interview. Those outlets need new content and that's the only thing available to them.
YES, STREAMING UX'S STILL MOSTLY SUCK
This piece in Salon is in theory about the challenges of determining where you can stream a specific title. But the article mostly regurgitates vague complaints you've heard endless times before.
But there are some comments about the various streaming services and their still-terrible user experiences. Which you would have thought would have improved more by this point in the product cycle:
“If I ever try scrolling through endless titles on a specific streamer’s landing page, it can feel like a Herculean task,” says Cameron Nudleman, an avid film-lover based in Austin, Texas. Nudleman prefers to use his Amazon Fire Stick’s voice search feature to look for specific titles he’s interested in, but that experience is its own can of worms. “I chose a Fire Stick because, as an existing Prime customer, it felt like the easiest and cheapest way to host all of my streaming services in one place. While the experience isn’t entirely awful, I would rate it a six at best.” Nudleman says the attachment designed to enhance the selection and viewing process has only made it more exasperating. “[The Peacock app] is hit or miss,” he adds. “Occasionally, it will crash out for no discernible reason. Paramount+ and Max have issues nearly every time I use them. Paramount+ crashes any time I try to switch shows, and Max turns on closed captioning every time a new episode or a film starts, despite me having closed captions off as the default setting.”
It is astounding to me how bad some of these streaming platforms are when it comes to simple things such as not crashing every time you use it. The problem for all of these platforms is that improving the tech stack is expensive. And there is always something else that ends up being the company spending priority.
TWEET OF THE DAY
THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY OF 'SURVIVOR'
A number of entertainment outlets are posting celebrations of the 25th anniversary of Survivor. But seeing them today reminded me of my own small contribution to the coverage of Survivor, which took place during the later Survivor: Africa season:
That was a big exclusive for me, because I was still fairly new to the television journalism beat and no one else had the story. There wasn't even a hint of the story. So before I posted the piece, I reached out to CBS publicity, hoping for a comment. They blew me off entirely for nearly two days, so I posted the story one afternoon. The next morning, the NY Post published its own story, with no mention of my work. But there was a statement from CBS, who apparently decided to give the story to the Post rather than talking to me.
Ah, the joys of being a small fish in a big pond.
ODDS AND SODS
* This Reddit AMA by the person who won The Rehearsal's fictional "Wings Of Voice" competition provides a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the show and how it's put together.
* I've read a lot of tributes to George Wendt in recent days. But this piece by Cheers writer Rob Long is maybe the best one. "People loved Norm. So much so that if a line of dialogue referred to beer, wives or any other Norm-related topic, the audience would just start laughing in anticipation of Norm’s reply. They would laugh, in other words, on the set-up. The punchline was already written in their minds by George Wendt’s indelible performance over the years."
* Ahead of this Saturday's Tedum event, Netflix announced some renewals. The Royals and Black Warrant are being picked up for a second season and Mismatched is returning for a fourth season.
* Darren Criss and Renée Elise Goldsberry will host The Tony Awards: Act One, a live pre-show streaming June 8th on Pluto TV.
* Season four of The Morning Show will premiere Wednesday, September 17th on Apple TV+.
* I was reminded today of this 25-year-old video clip (pre-You Tube!), which showed a guy who had digitally inserted himself into a clip from the TV series Airwolf.
WHAT'S NEW TONIGHT AND TOMORROW
WEDNESDAY, MAY 28TH, 2025:
Adults Series Premiere (Hulu)
F1: The Academy Series Premiere (Netflix)
Government Cheese Season One Finale (Apple TV+)
Implosion: The Titanic Sub Disaster (Discovery)
In The Kitchen With Harry Hamlin Season Two Finale (IFC)
Raid The Cage Season Premiere (CBS)
THURSDAY, MAY 29TH:
And Just Like That.....Season Three Premiere (Max)
Bob's Burgers Season Premiere (Fox)
Death Valley Series Premiere (BritBox)
Dept. Q Series Premiere (Netflix)
Family Guy Season Premiere (Fox)
Grimsburg Season Premiere (Fox)
Jersey Shore Family Vacation Season Premiere (MTV)
Mad Unicorn (Netflix)
Scrublands Season Two Premiere (AMC+)
The Better Sister (Prime Video)
To Get Her (BET+)
The Great North Season Premiere (Fox)
SEE YOU ON THURSDAY!