Too Much TV: Your TV Talking Points For Thursday, July 27th, 2023

The challenges of programming and running a FAST channel

Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Thursday, July 27th, 2023.

Today’s newsletter is a bit shorter than normal. On the other hand, some great new interviews coming next week.

ANOTHER CASE FOR BRINGING BUSINESS AFFAIRS EXECUTIVES INTO THE STRIKE NEGOTIATIONS
I talked a bit yesterday about a piece from a TV business affairs executive who had some suggestions about how to resolve the ongoing WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes.

Business affairs executives often have the clearest perspective on the business of show business. So it's no surprise to see that in the latest piece from Vulture's Joe Adalian, he found plenty of people who think that BA executives need to be involved in the negotiation process. As soon as possible.

One senior exec at a struck company agreed that only having labor relations experts represent the studios “is a strange setup” and said that he saw wisdom to the notion of BA experts getting involved at some point. “For stuff where you’re stuck on issues of transparency and specific deal points, it might possibly be better to have everybody’s BA person leading it,” this insider said. Another studio vet was also intrigued by the idea but also cautioned that any BA types chosen to head into the negotiations would have to be senior enough to win the trust of the company CEOs. “It has to be somebody that Bob Iger or Bob Bakish will listen to,” she says, referring to the respecitve Disney and Paramount Global CEOs.

Finding folks the moguls respect might mean turning not to the business affairs vets currently on staff at the major companies but rather to their predecessors— the people who came up with the CEOs over the decades, or whose industry bonafides are impeccable. Among the names mentioned by sources I spoke with this week are BA pros who also moved on to bigger roles within their companies, such as former CBS president Nancy Tellem; ex-CW chief Mark Pedowitz; former NBC Entertainment co-chairman Marc Graboff; and recently departed Showtime Entertainment president Jana Winograde. All four spent years working as BA execs at various studios putting together hundreds of talent deals — experience that served them well when they moved closer to the entertainment side of the business. “What’s missing from the room, and missing in general in these talks, is someone who views the creators as collaborators and not just employees,” says one industry pro, adding that the aforementioned foursome all have “that ability to understand both the creatives and the realities of the business. They could get in there and say, ‘I don’t agree with them, but I get the value of what they do’.”

PERSON CLOSE TO CALIFORNIA GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM THINKS HE'S THE PERFECT PERSON TO SETTLE THE HOLLYWOOD STRIKES
We are in that part of the ongoing Hollywood strikes where reporters start to run out of things to write about. That’s the most likely explanation for this piece in Deadline, which obviously relies on a source close to California's ambitious governor for its premise:

Gov. Gavin Newsom is prepared to step in to try to broker a deal between the WGA, SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP if there is no significant movement by the fall, we hear.

"He’s the obvious choice to bring the parties together and bring down the temperature," a political and industry insider says of teh nimble and notoriously patient politician. "Getting a deal will be a test of his Jenga skills, but that’s where Newsom likes to surprise people."

The rest of the piece is long but not especially surprising. And I say that not factoring in the contractually obligated mention of Lou Wasserman.

TWEET OF THE DAY

THE CHALLENGES OF PROGRAMMING AND RUNNING A FAST CHANNEL
It feels as if there are at least 900 FAST channels operating right now and while that might be an exaggeration, it's not much of one.

Nicely Entertainment’s Scott Kirkpatrick and Candlelight Media Group’s Scott Wiscombe were part of a session at the FAST Festival today and they had some interesting perspective on the industry. While a major media company like Paramount has more content than it could ever put on a series of FAST Channels, smaller players aren't that lucky. And that can cause some challenges when it comes to programming:

“There’s the upfront cost of getting it up and running, which can be quite steep,” Kirkpatrick noted. “And to be competitive in a single channel, you need 100 hours minimum. With movies, you need 75 to 100 titles to be impactful. They don’t all have to be exceptional, but it’s competitive out there, so they have to be pretty damn good if you want to get meaningful placement. Once it’s up and running, you have to be important enough to return to for an audience and advertisers; once they go through your vertical and they’ve seen everything, they don’t come back. A couple of movies per week minimum is what you need to keep that fresh and interesting for clients and audiences. You’re talking about 10 to 15 new movies a month. Plus, the 100 you started with—year on year, that is a lot.”

Wiscombe agreed that upfront costs are a significant starting hurdle. “Apart from the monetary startup standpoint, it’s time-consuming. It takes some expertise to launch, monitor and manage a channel. You don’t want viewers to get bored if you’re always showing the same things. So it’s about ensuring you have enough content to start and enough opportunity to add new content.”

While the topic didn't come up in this conversation, I have heard from people familiar with the metrics of some of the larger FAST aggregators such as Pluto and Tubi that generally speaking, FAST channels that focus on a specific show (i.e. The Andy Griffith Show Channel) tend to do better with audiences that those with a more general theme such as "Summer Romance Movies."

WHAT'S NEW TODAY AND TOMORROW:

THURSDAY, JULY 27TH:
* Agatha Christie's Hjerson Series Premiere (Topic)
* Beware The Night Nurse (LMN)
* Happiness For Beginners (Netflix)
* Harley Quinn Season Premiere (Max)
* Jaws In The Shallows (Discovery)
* Looney Tunes Cartoons Season Premiere (Max)
* Monster Mako: Fresh Blood (Discovery)
* Mother Undercover (Hulu)
* Paradise (Netflix)
* Shark Vs Snake: Battle Of The Bites (Discovery)
* The Croods: Family Tree Season Premiere (Hulu/Peacock)
* The Dragon Prince: Mystery Of Aaravos Season Five Premiere (Netflix)
* The Kardashians Season Finale (Hulu)
* The Heiress And The Heist (Sundance Now)
* The Lady Of Silence: The Metaviejitas Murders (Netflix)
* The Murderer (Netflix)
* The Slumber Party (Disney)
* The Witcher Season Premiere (Netflix)
* Today We'll Talk About That Day (Netflix)
* Twisted Metal Series Premiere (Peacock)
* The Witcher (Netflix)
* Zoey 102 Series Premiere (Paramount+)

FRIDAY, JULY 28TH:
* Big Nunu's Little Heist (Netflix)
* Captain Fall (Netflix)
* Darkness (Film Movement)
* Deadly Sharks Of Paradise (Discovery)
* D.P. Season Two Premiere (Netflix)
* Good Omens Season Two Premiere (Prime Video)
* Haunting At Shark Tower (Discovery)
* Heels Season Two Premiere (Starz)
* Hidden Strike (Netflix)
* How to Become A Cult Leader (Netflix)
* How To Win With John Wilson Season Premiere (HBO)
* Miraculous: Ladybug & Cat Noir, The Movie (Netflix)
* Novela (Prime Video)
* Secret Celebrity Renovation Season Premiere (CBS)
* Steamboat Silly (Disney+)
* The Beanie Bubble (Hulu)
* This Fool Series Premiere (Hulu)
* The Tailor Season Two Premiere (Netflix)
* Tomorrow x Together: Our Lost Summer (Disney+)
* Tropic Jaws (Discovery)

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.