Too Much TV: Your TV Talking Points For Tuesday, September 7th, 2021

This was definitely the day after a holiday...

Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Tuesday, September 7th, 2021. I'm writing this from the Twin Cities suburbs, where AllYourScreens HQ is powered by coffee and pinwheel sandwiches.

HULU TO RAISE COST OF BASE PLAN $1 A MONTH IN OCTOBER
Hulu announced today that it the cost of its base Limited Commercials and No Ads plans by $1 a month. Starting on October 8th, Hulu with Limited Commercials will increase from $5.99 to $6.99 a month, while No Ads (Mostly) Hulu will increase from $11.99 to $12.99. The Hulu Annual Plan, which includes the Limited Commercials plan, will increase from $59.99 to $69.99 a year.

There will be no change to the price of Hulu Live TV, which remains $64.99 a month – or $71.99 a month with the Hulu (No Ads) plan.

MSNBC PRESIDENT RASHIDA JONES ON RACHEL MADDOW'S NEW DEAL AND THE NETWORK'S FUTURE IN STREAMING
This Deadline interview with the new president of MSNBC has gotten a lot of attention, but I wanted to focus on this part. Particularly given the changes the news network is making to its lineup:

The network has built up a roster of more diverse voices across its schedule, as it has been the No. 1 cable news network among African American audiences. She said that they are continuing to look at underserved communities, including geographically — "not just being diverse geographically on a map but really getting into the communities and telling the stories of those who live in the communities, I think first and foremost is a huge priority."

And that is my continuing issue with the changes being made at MSNBC. It's great that they are adding diversity to their anchor desk. But the shows themselves haven't evolved and they certainly don't appear to have learned anything from Maddow's success. Jones, like other NBC executives, still see the network's daytime schedule and primetime lineup as being two different types of journalism:

When she became president on February 1, she announced one of her priorities would be to better differentiate between the daytime news programming and the analysis and perspectives — some may refer to it as opinion — in the evening.

Some of the daytime shows have been rebranded to add “reports” to the host’s name — i.e., Stephanie Ruhle Reports, Craig Melvin Reports — reflecting that it is hosted by a network journalist. "I think it’s important for people to understand what to expect from us, and so, you will 24 hours a day, you will get the same foundation of strong journalism. We have the same standards as far as the type of journalism that we report, but I think it is important for the audience to understand what to expect in any given daypart. I want them to understand that there is breaking news that happens, that we are in place to go for that information. I also want them to understand the difference between someone sharing their perspective on a story versus the reporting on that story." The network points to total viewer Nielsen ratings wins over cable news rivals for such breaking news events as former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial and of President Joe Biden’s first address to Congress.

My issue with this is that network executives are misreading the "real journalism" status of their daytime programming. What difference does it make who the anchor is if the guests are primarily a mix of NBC News reporters giving their "take" on the politics of a story and paid MSNBC contributors whose job it is to provide opinion? And because cable news have this awkward sense of what "opinion-free news programming" looks like, much of the daytime schedule on CNN and MSNBC spends a lot of time rehashing the same couple of stories throughout the day, because that is the easiest course of action. 

THE ECONOMICS OF ONLINE JOURNALISM
No matter how big or small your news organization, making money online is a challenge. It's a constant juggling of priorities and trying to figure out how to maximize revenue while not impacting your value to the readers. For me, that has meant keeping this newsletter free, because sending out 17,000+ newsletters five times a week has a wider impact than it would receive as a subscription-driven newsletter. On AllYourScreens.com, that means not jamming the pages with pointless auto-playing videos, which even the big Hollywood trades are doing now.

Defector relaunched a year ago as a subscription-only site and as it turns out, they have been pretty darn successful, according to editor-in-chief Tom Ley. He says Defector has $40,000 paid subscribers, which generated about $3.2 million in revenue last year:

That seems like a lot of money. What the hell did you spend all that money on?

As tempting as it was to empty our business bank account, fill an empty swimming pool with $3.2 million, and spend the last year swimming around in our riches, we instead decided to use our revenue to stand up a functioning, sustainable media company. 

We used about half of that $3.2 million to pay salaries and benefits for Defector’s 23 full-time employees. Another big chunk of money, a little over $500,000, was spent on creating and maintaining what a cool guy with a powerful business mindset would probably call our “tech stack,” but which I will simply call “all the shit that makes the website actually work.” That includes the website itself (lovingly crafted by Alley Interactive), the paywall technology (operated by Pico) that we use to make sure people actually pay up in order to read the site, the newsletter platform (Mailchimp) that we use to deliver a daily newsletter to Pal-level subscribers, and the company (Stripe) that processes all of subscriber payments. Taxes, HR, insurance costs, accounting services, and legal fees all added up to another few hundred thousand dollars. Our last big expense was the approximately $100,000 we spent paying freelance writers and other contractors who made art or helped produce video and audio content for us. 

Speaking for all small independent news sites, one of the best ways to support independent journalism is to whitelist your favorite sites in your ad blocker (and probably half of all visitors have one). And click on a banner ad every so often in a show of support. Because the click rate on banner advertising is so low, one click generally generates between 50 cents to upwards of $5 a click. So a little support on that front is as effective as forking over a monthly subscription fee. Now, to be clear, I am not suggesting you click an ad you're not interested in otherwise (that would break all sorts of rules). But if you find the ad interesting and you're on a site you want to support...that's a good way to do it.

In a related story, CNBC takes a look at SPAC's and the media sector and so far the track record for success has been mixed. I was especially interested in this paragraph:

Axios, the digital news site that pulled out of talks to be acquired by Axel Springer in July, and Penske Media Group, which owns publications including “Variety,” “Rolling Stone,” and “Hollywood Reporter,” are among companies that aren’t pursuing SPACs, according to people familiar with the matter.

Penske has been approached by eight different SPACs but has no interest in pursuing a deal given the current market, according to a company spokesperson.

“We haven’t pursued or entertained such discussions, as we believe it is a short-term game to provide liquidity for opportunistic/greedy investors or fledgling companies who cannot get public through a traditional IPO process,” a Penske spokesperson said. “We remain focused on long-term shareholder value, not on the latest investor fad."

It's worth noting that when the Penske spokesperson talks about "shareholder value," they are talking about owner Jay Penske, who apparently owns/controls about 60 percent of the company. And based on what I know about the company and the performance of some of the properties, I suspect the real issue isn't that Penske isn't interested in selling. It's that he can't get anything close to what he believes the company is worth. 

30 YEARS AGO: REMEMBERING THE 1991/1992 PRIMETIME SEASON
As I mentioned last week, AllYourScreens is doing a series of pieces of pieces looking back at the 1991/1992 primetime season. So far, those pieces have included looks back at short-lived shows such as the Fox comedy Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventures and the NBC comedy Walter & Emily. But my favorite piece so far is this look at accusations of plagiarism David Simon leveled at John Wells over the pilot for the upcoming CBS drama Polish Hill:

According to Simon, an agent sent Levinson's production company a sample of Wells' work, which turned out to be the Polish Hill pilot. 

Simon, a crime reporter for The (Baltimore) Sun, says entire accounts, dialogue and characters were lifted from his book by "Polish Hill" screenwriter John Wells.

"I called CBS and said, `How can you put this on? This is stolen material,"' Simon said in an interview. "Two of his (Wells') three murders are directly out of the book."

A LOOK AT THE INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS AT STARZ
World Screen has a good interview with Superna Kalle, president of international networks at Starz. Starz Play is available in more than 50 countries worldwide and while some of her answers are the expected general touting of Starz, there are a couple of really informative answers, including this one about how Starz approaches global exclusivity:

TV DRAMA: How important are international originals for StarzPlay?

KALLE: It’s an area of growth for us as we enter the next stage of maturity as a global SVOD. We recently partnered with STUDIOCANAL for the upcoming Marc Levy adaptation All Those Things We Never Said, which will star Jean Reno. We have wrapped production on the Spanish-language original Express, with Pantaya and The Mediapro Studio, as well as the Mexican pageant drama Señorita 89 from Lucia Puenzo. We’re actively developing a slate of international originals and look forward to strengthening this offering even further.

TV DRAMA: Is exclusivity required, or are you looking at non-exclusive deals?

KALLE: One of the most attractive elements of our service is that we have content that you can’t find anywhere else, so we aren’t looking to deviate too far away from that. However, we are looking at creative ways to launch original series where we may have a second window in the home territory but exclusively in other key territories. Also, our deal with STUDIOCANAL for All Those Things We Never Said is a good example of forgoing the home territory for exclusivity globally.

VIACOM/CBS AND THE EXISTENTIAL THREAT OF SHARI REDSTONE
There are a lot of problems with Viacom/CBS, but the biggest impediment to success is Shari Redstone, who controls the company and is intent on selling it all off for a price that seems unlikely right now, given the company's struggles. This is a point made in William D. Cohan's newsletter "Dry Powder," which most recently has an interview with former Hollywood Reporter editor Matt Belloni. They discussed media company valuations and the subject of Viacom/CBS came up:

MB: On to our favorite topic: Shari Redstone. Two years after she merged CBS and Viacom, the combined company has a market value of about $26 billion, less than the $33 billion market cap of the two stand-alone entities pre-merger. And here’s how the stock prices of the major U.S. studio-owning companies have performed from that date, Dec. 4, 2019, to last Tuesday:

Amazon: $1,761 to $3,471 +97.1%
​Netflix: $304 to $569 +87%
​Comcast: $44 to $61 +39.2%
​Lionsgate: $9.86 to $12.92 +31%
​Disney: $146 to $181 +23.9%
​ViacomCBS: $39 to $41 +6.8%
​AT&T: $38 to $27 -$28.3%

That’s … not great. Other than AT&T’s WarnerMedia debacle, which was only part of the reason behind the stock slide, ViacomCBS has lagged behind its media peers. We’ve talked about how Redstone may finally be inching toward a sale, but the New York Post reported this week that she’s pausing that effort. If that’s true, at what point do investors look at the merger results and demand action?

WC: Well, as you know from our previous conversations, I believe that Redstone forced this merger to make it easier for her to sell the combined entity—as she is reportedly trying to do, so far without success. What makes her strategic position most difficult is that ViacomCBS is seriously undersized, and the most likely buyers—if there are any—are unlikely to step up at anything near the price that Shari will need, especially after the company sold $3 billion of stock at a temporarily-inflated $85 a share in March. How is Shari going to make those investors whole, with the stock now trading at less than half that price?

But unlike, say, Disney—which has to at least listen to a major shareholder like Dan Loeb—Redstone doesn’t have to listen to anyone. She controls around 80 percent of the voting stock of ViacomCBS, while owning less than 10 percent of the economics of the company. (And there is every reason to believe she doesn’t listen to many people.) In other words, she has absolute control of the company and nobody can get her to do anything she doesn’t want to do. Demand action from Shari Redstone? It’s simply not going to happen.

I'd argue that Redstone's insistence on combining the two companies made selling it all even less likely. While not every part of Viacom's business is doing well, its IP has real value. But no media company large enough to seriously consider purchasing Viacom/CBS is interested in the broadcast television business. Or if they do have some interest, they already own a broadcast network. Realistically, if Redstone is intent on selling the company as is, it's likely going to require finding a buyer who is looking to split up the company into a 3-4 different components. It's possible that would be a private equity company, although the size of Viacom/CBS makes that scenario less likely.

ODDS AND SODS
* The Pokemon movie Secrets Of The Jungle is coming to Netflix on October 

* If this wasn't such a busy day, I would have more to say about this. But you should read critics and "The Dying Art Of The Hatchet Job." 

* Tomorrow is Fox's turn in front of the TCA. More on that in tomorrow's newsletter. 

SEE YOU WEDNESDAY

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