Too Much TV: Your TV Talking Points For Thursday, August 12th, 2021
Honestly, there was enough stuff for two newsletters today
Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Thursday, August 12th, 2021. I'm writing this from the Twin Cities suburbs, where AllYourScreens HQ is powered by Diet Rite and the feel of a summer breeze as I write this while I am also grilling chicken breasts.
DISNEY REPORTS Q3 EARNINGS
The Walt Disney Co. Aug. 12 reported that its branded Disney+ subscription streaming VOD service ended the third quarter (ended July 3) with 116 million subscribers — up from 57.5 million subs in the previous-year period. When combined with ESPN+, Hulu and Hulu with Live TV, Disney ended the period with almost 174 million subs. Specifically, ESPN+ finished the quarter with 14.9 million subs, up from 8.5 million last year. Hulu increased its sub base to 39.1 million from 32.1 million. Online TV platform Hulu with Live TV topped 3.7 million subs from 3.4 million last year.
Here are some nuggets/takeaways from the earnings call:
* Disney+ will host Disney Plus Day on November 12th to celebrate the two-year anniversary launch of the SVOD platform. The event will coincide with new product announcements and company-wide cross-promotional campaign.
*Disney is launching Disney+ Hotstar in Malaysia and Thailand in Q4. The SVOD is currently operating in limited capacity in Japan and will switch to full operation in late October. Other launches in South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong.
* Disney CEO Bob Chapek said that film-release strategy still made on a "film by film basis" and the company will "always do what we believe is in the best interest of the film:"
“As you probably recognize, we live in a very uncertain world in terms of the recovery of some of our markets, and theatrical exhibition world is certainly a part of that. We said from the very beginning that we value flexibility and being able to make as last-minute calls as we can, given what we see in the marketplace. Certainly, when we planned our schedule that we’re executing right now, we did not anticipate — nor do I think anybody — the resurgence of Covid with a Delta variant that would have such an effect on the marketplace.”
* Chapek also explained why Free Guy was not released on Disney Premium+:
"On Free Guy, obviously this is a title that we acquired under a different distribution assumption and set of agreements, so we don’t have the degree of freedom to do that. On Shang-Chi, we actually think it’s going to be an interesting experiment for us, because it’s got only a 45-day window for us. The prospect of being able to take a Marvel title to the service after going theatrical for 45 days will be yet another data point to inform our actions going forward on our titles."
In response to a question about whether Shang Chi could shift to Disney Premium+ at the last minute, Chapek stressed that wasn't possible at this point:
“Once again, I’ll refer back to my previous answer: when we planned Shang-Chi, that title was planned on being in a much more healthy theatrical environment, and at this point, unfortunately, due distribution agreements that we have and due to just the practicalities of last-minute changes, it wouldn’t be possible."
* And in an indirect response to the Black Widow lawsuit, Chapek said that "We have figured out ways to fairly compensate our talent'" no matter how films are distributed. He claimed that "hundreds' of agreements" with talent have fared successfully in this new operating environment.
* As far as the streaming business is concerned, Chapek said in terms of acquiring subscribers, "I like to think of it as if we are in the first inning of the first game of a very long season." But he also added that 'Our churn (at Disney+) has declined....our retention is very healthy." He also added that churn rate on the bundles is even lower than on the individual services. Although lowering the churn rate is the primary reason to do a bundle, so it would news if that wasn't the case.
* Disney CFO Christine McCarthy said the company sees both dividends and share repurchases returning but "not until we have returned to a more normalized operating environment"
* In regards to Hulu, McCarthy said that "I think if the ad-sales team had more inventory (at Hulu) they could sell it."
AMAZON MOVES PRODUCTION OF 'LORD OF THE RINGS' TO UK
It's been interesting to see how the various streamers are shifting production globally as they try and maximize their studio space and production facilities. Amazon Studios announced today that it will shift production of its high-profile Lord Of The Rings series from New Zealand to the UK for season two:
The shift from New Zealand to the U.K. aligns with the studio’s strategy of expanding its production footprint and investing in studio space across the U.K., with many of Amazon Studios’ tentpole series and films already calling the U.K. home.
The highly anticipated The Lord of the Rings series recently wrapped principal photography on Season One in New Zealand and is scheduled to premiere on Prime Video in more than 240 countries around the world on Friday, September 2, 2022.
“We want to thank the people and the government of New Zealand for their hospitality and dedication and for providing The Lord of the Rings series with an incredible place to begin this epic journey,” said Vernon Sanders, VP and Co-Head of TV, Amazon Studios. “We are grateful to the New Zealand Film Commission, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, Tourism New Zealand, Auckland Unlimited, and others for their tremendous collaboration that supported the New Zealand film sector and the local economy during the production of Season One.”
Season One post-production will continue in New Zealand through June 2022, and pre-production on Season Two will begin concurrently in the U.K. after the first of the year.
As is always the case, these decisions have financial consequences above the cost of the move. In this case, Amazon Studios is forgoing the five percent production rebate it was due to receive for season one, since it won't be keeping production in New Zealand:
"As we look to relocate the production to the U.K., we do not intend to actively pursue the Season One MoU five percent financial uplift with the New Zealand government or preserve the terms around that agreement, however we respectfully defer to our partners and will remain in close consultation with them around next steps," said Albert Cheng, COO & Co-Head of TV, Amazon Studios.
THE BRANDING OF NETFLIX ORIGINALS
What On Netflix's Kasey Moore posted a 16-second branding clip that Netflix uses for its theatrical releases and suggested that Netflix should use the clip to intro every Netflix Original. Aside from the challenge of deciding what actually qualifies as a Netflix "original," I think it's a great idea.
One of the best pieces of branding HBO ever did was their iconic HBO opening that they attached to all of their original content. Just hearing a few seconds of the audio will remind you of the clip and that sort of cellular-level branding is priceless. To be honest, I am somewhat surprised that none of the streaming services have attempted a similar move.
HBO MAX TO LAUNCH NEW APP
As someone moderately obsessed with UX and content discovery stories, I am both fascinated by and jealous of the reporting of Vulture's Joe Adalian, who writes in the latest issue of his newsletter Buffering that HBO Max plans to roll out a completely new app following months of complaints over instability issues and other problems with the current platform:
The WarnerMedia exec tells me some of the trouble can be traced to bugs that cropped up as part of the June launch of a new $10 ad-supported tier and, just a few weeks later, the expansion into 39 new countries and territories. Integrating commercials into what had previously been an ad-free platform meant introducing a whole new layer of coding into the app, thus increasing the potential for technical hobgoblins to sneak in and make mischief. Similarly, distributing Max programming to dozens of new, non-English-speaking markets also required tons of engineering bandwidth with the Herculean effort needed simply to add subtitles to thousands of hours of programming.
However, the larger issue, according to HBO Max insiders, is that the current app wasn’t built from scratch the way Netflix or Hulu were brought to life. Instead, Max has been running on a retrofitted version of the old HBO Go and HBO Now services. While those were both solid applications, they were designed for a very different product. According to the WarnerMedia exec, the main concern of the engineers then was making sure everything didn’t crash when hundreds of thousands of people simultaneously streamed Game of Thrones on a Sunday night. “That program was built for scale, and it was rock solid,” he says. HBO Max obviously still needs to handle a lot of traffic all at once, but it’s serving up substantially more content to a bigger audience — subscribers who are spread around the globe rather than living in just one country. Trying to do that on the existing platform has been a challenge from day one.
Adalian reports that the HBO Max app will be replaced on every platform in the four to five months, with the Roku app first on the list.
This story is a reminder that the other major app with similar problems is Paramount+, which has also been the focus of a number of complaints from customers. It's also built on top of an older platform, the CBS All-Access framework, which I have been told has caused similar problems to the ones experienced at HBO Max.
ODDS & SODS
* Actress Sharon Gless will be releasing her autobiography in December, entitled "Apparently, There Were Complaints"
* Canadian cinema giant Cineplex has launched a discounted movie ticket program, CineClub, where members can receive one regular admission ticket for $9.99 a month and receive discounts on concessions and other benefits.
* HBO Max announced today it has ordered a new eight-episode half-hour comedy series Sort Of, created by Bilal Baig (Acha Bacha) and Fab Filippo (Save Me). The series follows follows the journey of "Sabi Mehboob" (Baig), a gender fluid millennial who straddles various identities from sexy bartender at an LGBTQ bookstore/bar, to the youngest child in a large Pakistani family, to the de facto parent of a downtown hipster family. Sabi feels like they’re in transition in every aspect of their life, from gender to love to sexuality to family to career.
* Disney+ has pushed back its price increase for those outside of the US who subscribed before February 23rd (when Star launched). The change has been pushed back about six weeks until now take effect as of November 3rd. It's notable that the original date of August 23rd would have fallen at the very end of the Q3 earnings period.
SEE YOU TOMORROW
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