Too Much TV: Your TV Talking Points For Friday, September 2nd, 2022

Hollywood can't sit out the coming culture wars.....

Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Friday, September 2nd, 2022.

PROGRAMMING NOTES
* A very short newsletter today ahead of the holiday weekend. It's a slow news day and everybody in Hollywood is already on their way to whatever getaway they can afford.  As you might expect, there won't be a newsletter on Monday, but I'll be back on Tuesday.

* Also on Tuesday, you'll have the opportunity to subscribe to another free newsletter, "10 Stories You Should Know." It's a Monday-Friday newsletter that includes links and a brief explainer on ten media/TV/streaming stories that should be on your radar for the day. It'll be short, but it'll also give you a heads-start on the stories that matter that day. The goal is to have it go out about 6:00 a.m. ET in order to jump-start your day. 

* Tuesday also brings a special TV premieres-themed set of pieces taking a look back 50 years at the 1972-1973 primetime television season. There were a lot of now classic television shows airing that season, but there were also a lot of incredibly obscure programs and I'll be highlighting a lot of those on AllYourScreens.com. Unfortunately, I couldn't find many surviving people from that era to talk to me about the season, but I have plenty of archival coverage to help fill in the gaps. First up is a look at the ABC comedy The Corner Bar, which starred Anne Meara and was notable for featuring the first recurring gay character on American television, Peter Panama (played by Vincent Schiavelli).

* I've had several people reach out about group paid subscriptions, which are apparently easier to explain/expense at some companies. If you're interested, you can click on this link, which offers a 50% discount on group subscriptions of four or more. $25 apiece? That is a smoking deal.

JOHN HARWOOD EXITS CNN
CNN White House correspondent John Harwood announced on Twitter Friday that he is leaving the network. The veteran print and TV news journalist joined CNN in 2020 after 14 years at CNBC.

No reason is being given for his exit, although it's worth noting that he has been pushing back against efforts by CNN to move focus away from criticizing Republicans and/or Donald Trump.

These two tweets certainly seem to illustrate some of the cognitive dissonance at the network:

When Disney got into a public relations battle with the conservative governor of Florida, I wrote that no matter how much media companies want to stay apolitical and keep all sides happy, it's an increasingly impossible task. Media company owners are typically very conservative and over the decades it has led to some difficult wranglings inside the networks - especially the cable news networks.

One of my first big cable news stories was writing about the exit of Phil Donahue from MSNBC. He was pushed out in large part because the perception of NBC's owners was that he was anti-war. That belief led to some weird decisions about his show, including installing someone whose job was to make sure that at least two pro-Iraq War guests were booked for every guest perceived to be "anti-war."

We're not there yet at CNN. But I did hear from a producer at the network today who said they had been directed to not be afraid to book guests who were inclined to criticize Democrats or the White House. There has also been an effort to rein in the use of "fascism" by guests, although it's not clear to me how strong of a suggestion that was based on my conversation.

Like it or not, we live in a time when nearly every decision is seen as an inherently political one. And this next story is another example of that trend....

AMAZON SUSPENDS VIEWER RATINGS OF 'RINGS OF POWER'
The Hollywood Reporter says Amazon's fantasy series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has become the target of some unhappy viewers, some of whom complain the series to too "woke" and "diverse." A day after the first two episodes of the series debuted on Prime Video, the show’s average audience score on Rotten Tomatoes is a “rotten” 37 percent, and reviews on Amazon have been outright suspended:

“Review bombing” is when a group of online users post numerous negative reviews for a product or service due to its perceived cultural or political issues rather than its actual quality. Perusing Rotten Tomatoes’ audience reviews for Rings of Power, there are some one-star entries that meet the definition. “They wanted to involve such an important work with current politics and they have succeeded,” reads an example. “Nobody has a problem with seeing people of color in movies, series or stories … but this story was already written and should not have been sullied.” Opined another: “Reflecting world diversity in Middle Earth is an odd goal, albeit good for marketing maybe, but it was clearly more important then [sic] making a functional TV series.”

I've been working on the internet since dinosaurs were posting photos on GeoCities and the one immoveable rule of the online world is that even in the best of circumstances, viewer generated reviews and feedback are easy to manipulate for various nefarious purposes.

WHAT'S NEW FOR FRIDAY
Here's a quick rundown of all the new stuff premiering today on TV and streaming:

Buy My House (Netflix)
Cuttputlli (Hulu)
Dated And Related (Netflix)
Devil In Ohio Series Premiere (Netflix)
Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives Season Two (Netflix)
Fakes (Netflix)
Honk For Jesus. Save Your Soul (Peacock)
House Of Hammer (Discovery+)
Ivy + Bean (Netflix)
Ivy + Bean: The Ghost That Had To Go (Netflix)
Ivy + Bean: Doomed To Dance (Netflix)
Life By Ella (Apple TV+)
Siempre Fui Yo, Detrás de la historia (Disney+)
Surface Season One Finale (Apple TV+)
The Festival Of Troubadors (Netflix)
The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power Series Premiere (Amazon)
Trying Season Finale (Apple TV+)
You're Nothing Special Series Premiere (Netflix)

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

SEE YOU TUESDAY!

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