Too Much TV: Your TV Talking Points For Thursday, June 29th, 2023

Further down the content rabbit hole

Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Thursday, June 29th, 2023.

THE BUSINESS OF SUBTITLING
I am a very competitive person, so when I see a piece that is well written about a topic I care about, I am filled with a mix of envy and anger that I didn't get to it first.

I definitely had both those reactions reading this piece on subtitling. Written by The Hollywood Reporter's Kirsten Chuba, the piece offers the expected good overview of the business of subtitling in the streaming world we live in. But it also includes a lot of just fabulous behind-the-scene nuggets:

Part of that training is learning each studio’s very specific subtitle requirements, or style guide. Netflix’s style guide, which is public, includes rules like a limit of 42 characters per line, a set reading speed of up to 20 characters per second for adult shows (up to 17 for children’s programs) and an emphasis that “dialogue must never be censored.” One exec says Disney’s guide is so detailed that it specifies which words are to be used for R2-D2’s beeps or the sound of a moving lightsaber; those words are then consistently maintained throughout Star Wars programming.

Outside of that, captioning can be a very creative process, which leads to some comical back-and-forth with producers. York recalls that on one project, “We described an actor as bald and we got in trouble for that. They were bald!”

And as you might imagine, captioning live shows can be challenging:

Live captioning is an entirely different animal, and those workers use steno machines, like those used in courtrooms, to create hyperfast captions. “We clocked Rachel Maddow at 270 words a minute, so she’s probably one of the fastest [talkers] out there,” says York, joking, “Only the best captioners can do MSNBC primetime.”

Did I mention that I wish I had written this piece?

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN ALERT
Not that you would realize this from looking at the streaming service's promo window, but Paramount+ has just added three great Bruce Springsteen docs: Bruce Springsteen & The E-Street Band: Live In New York City, Bruce Springsteen & The E-Street Band: The Legendary 1979 No Nukes Concert and Bruce Springsteen Wings For Wheels: The Making Of Born To Run. 

I keep arguing that despite all the decades of reality programming, MTV still as a strong music brand with consumers of a certain age. So it's not clear to me why Paramount+ doesn't lean into that connection more and create a music-oriented sub navigation tab that focuses on acquired music documentaries and live concerts. There are plenty of them available but adding them to Paramount+ won't matter if no one can find them. 

For instance, unless you already know the Springsteen docs are on Paramount+, the only way you'd stumble across them is by scrolling down about ten rows on the home page to "brands," select MTV, then scroll down another 6-7 rows to "The Music Vault."

Aside from being inconvenient, this type of navigation challenge becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Subscribers can't find the content, so the viewing numbers are terrible. And some executive later decides not to license similar programming because "no one watches it."

TWEET OF THE DAY

FURTHER DOWN THE CONTENT RABBIT HOLE
Discovery is premiering season nine of the Australian reality series Outback Opal Hunters tomorrow night and it brings up another one of those weird content labeling & content discovery quirks. If you happen to tune into the premiere and want to see previous episodes of show, you'll likely be a bit confused. While tomorrow night's episode is indeed the season nine premiere (which aired in Australia last fall), the only previous season available for streaming is labeled as season five, which Discovery aired last year. Although season five in the U.S. is really a combination of the Australian seasons seven and eight.

So if you watched the show on Discovery U.S. last season, you won't have missed anything when you watch tomorrow night's episode. But if you've never seen the show before and log onto Max or Discovery+ and only see episodes labeled season five, you are going to be very confused....

I AM JUST GOING TO ASSUME I HAD SOMETHING TO DO WITH THIS....EVEN IF I DIDN'T
On Monday, I wrote a piece for AllYourScreens noting that more than a month after launch, Max still hadn't updated its infamous "creator" tags on any of its content. I tried to get a comment from someone at Max with no luck, but did a response from someone at both the WGA and DGA stating they were looking into it. 

And yesterday, one of the trades had the "exclusive" news that Max is finally "in the process" of making the changes and the piece offered up some info from an unnamed source at Max.

Nah, I wasn't irritated at all.

ODDS AND SODS
* Marvin Kittman, who was the TV critic at Newsday for 35 years, recently died at the age of 93 and The New York Times has a great write-up. 

* If you are worried about that upcoming Riverdale musical episode, our Linda Martindale has thoughts about the idea that might ease your mind.

* Season three of The Morning Show will premiere September 13th on Apple TV+.

* MGM+ has picked up a third season of its original series From, which might be the best show you're not watching. I interviewed star Harold Perrineau ahead of the season two premiere and it turned out to be a great conversation about trust.

WHAT'S NEW FOR FRIDAY:
* Celebrity (Netflix)
* Essence Fest (Hulu)
* Is It Cake, Too? Series Premiere (Netflix)
* Nimona (Netflix)
* Outback Opal Hunters Season Premiere (Discovery)
* Silo Season One Finale (Apple TV+)
* Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan Season Four Premiere (Prime Video)

Click Here to see the list of all of the upcoming premiere dates for the next few months.

SEE YOU FRIDAY!

If you have any feedback, send it along to Rick@AllYourScreens.com and follow me on Twitter @aysrick.