Too Much TV: Your TV Talking Points For Thursday, October 10th, 2024

Not all journalists deserve to be respected

Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Thursday, October 10th, 2024:

NETFLIX 'NOT CHANGING OUR COMPENSATION MODEL'
As longtime readers know, I'm not a big fan of media executives limiting most of their public comments about strategy to a few carefully-curated paid industry events. But putting that aside, Netflix Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria appeared today at Bloomberg's Screentime event and made a point of stressing that - trade reporting to the contrary - Netflix is not planning to change its compensation for creatives from its cost-plus method to a more traditional smaller upfront plus residuals payment schedule:

“We like our model, and we like our model in film and TV and on the film side… we are not changing our model. Our model works great for talent. It works great for filmmakers. It’s worked well for us. We like the model. It’s worked for a long time, so we are not changing our compensation model"

She did say that in two cases on the movie side, there was a different payment approach taken and it sounded as if it was driven by requests from unnamed talent.

One underappreciated reason why Netflix likes the cost-plus method is that it makes the task of valuing and depreciating much simpler. The company knows its overall costs (at least in a range) and can plan accordingly. With a residuals-based compensation package, there is a lot more volatility moving forward. Which is something you see at the major studios, when profitability often depends primarily on recent box office results.

WHY IS MY FAVE TV SHOW TAKING SO LONG?
Vulture's Joe Adalian has a good piece on why shows such as Stranger Things and Severance have multi-year gaps between seasons and it's well-worth reading.

I'll add a couple of contributing factors that also have an impact on production times. One reason for some delays is that it's a side effect of the COVID and Hollywood strikes production halts. Studios scrambled to start productions back after COVID and had difficulties scheduling reshoots and production restarts with a cast and crews that had multiple people being pulled simultaneously onto competing projects. Those production starts also stretched available international studio space, forcing other delays. And just as things were getting sorted out, fears over the upcoming strikes led to production starts being pushed off. And then obviously the strikes pushed back things even farther.

The other factor is that the streaming TV production process works differently than the linear TV production model. And the Vulture piece highlights this:

So while it might be nice to have Ben Stiller doing Severance or Rian Johnson and Natasha Lyonne carefully crafting Poker Face, these feature vets simply aren’t schooled in how to make episodic television in a timely fashion. “Doing eight hours of television is not the same as doing a two-hour movie,” the streaming executive says warily. As a rule, he notes, movie types “are not as nimble in their writing,” and there has been “confusion sometimes about who’s in charge, the writer or the director.” All of that can slow down production and increase gaps between seasons.

But even when talent is native to television, the collapse of the broadcast ecosystem has resulted in “a whole generation of TV writers who have not been trained on 22 episodes,” the executive says. “It should be easy to turn around eight or ten episodes of a half-hour show, but they just don’t have that muscle. They don’t have experience in writing quickly and writing a lot.” Blame this on streaming execs: They could have found a way to keep this sort of episodic TV factory going, but instead opted to follow Netflix off the short-season cliff, believing audiences wanted to hook up with a sexy new show every few weeks rather than form long-term relationships with a few really good series.

One thing that isn't mentioned is that doing a global simultaneous premier naturally elongates the release schedule. Dubbing and subbing a season into as many as several dozen languages takes time. As does coordinating PR and marketing efforts across multiple territories.

And while the streaming executive notes that there is sometimes confusion between writer and director over who is in charge, much of the fault of that lies on the streamers, who have structured the production process in a way that has all the writing taking place before production starts. And even in the case of a showrunner writing every episode, the director naturally steps in if the writer isn't allowed to be on set.

I'll be interested to see if this settles down a couple of years down the road. I suspect it will, especially as we see streamers offering up more multiple-season orders to make the process more predictable.

SHOCKINGLY, THE ANKLER UNCOVERS ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF PENSKE MEDIA'S LACK OF ACCOUNTABILITY
I've written a lot about the weird goings-on at Penske Media, but The Ankler's C has been whacking away PMC like it was a pinata. The latest piece highlights an little-publicized Golden Globe International Icon Award that was given to actress Sharon Stone at a star-studded event in Turkey. And weirdly, even the The Golden Globes and the big Hollywood Trades are both owned by Penske, none of the trades even bothered to write about it:

Is it possible that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s geopolitical actions, condemned by the U.S. State Department, might just be part of the need to not celebrate the event as you might say, a partnership on a digital screening room? When you are winning Hollywood back to the Globes, now post-boycott, is a very special gala on Erdoğan’s home turf the thing you’d want to share with The Hollywood community? Or, maybe CBS, which has the broadcast license on the Golden Globes, might not be so thrilled to have its asset being deployed in a dictatorship such as this?

NOT ALL JOURNALISTS DESERVE TO BE RESPECTED
I don't much like doing junket interviews. The process is terrible for the person being interviewed, in part because they spend hours being asked variations of the same question every seven minutes until they want to scream. But as a journalist, I don't usually do them because there's not enough time to really have a conversation. You're offered 5-7 minutes and there is always the chance you'll be the 52nd person they've spoken with that day. So when I do decide to participate, it's almost always for someone I really want to speak with. And then I work hard to find a series of questions that haven't already been asked 20 times.

But for some journalists, their solution to the short timeframe is to be whacky or try and convince the celebrity into participating in some stunt. Because for bad journalists, that's easier than coming up with better questions.

There is a piece in today's Deadline about Anne Hathaway sending a letter of apology to Norweigan journalist Kjersti Flaa after video from a decade-old interview surfaced in which Hathaway answered nearly every question with one or two words. But the part of the story that jumped out me was this recounting of what led up to the interview:

Flaa came up with the idea of singing her questions in the hope that actors would respond with a tuneful answer. As the video shows, most played ball. Hathaway had other ideas.

The Princess Diaries actress declined to participate in the sing-song and proceeded to give brusque answers to Flaa’s questions. “Do you think love was more passionate back then?” Flaa asked. “No,” Hathaway replied shaking her head.

My first response to reading that was WTF?? That's not the type of request you make if you value the star's time or the work they put into their project. They're not trained monkeys, available by request to do something entertaining in order to generate some viral clicks. Honestly, I don't blame Hathaway for being annoyed.

Listen, bad interviews happen to any journalist. Sometimes it's our fault and sometimes the star is just having a bad terrible. I had an epically horrifying interview with the star of a Hallmark series at a recent TCA. I found it later that she had sat through several interviews in which the journalist didn't know her show well enough to ask anything but the most general question. And it put her in a bad mood and she took it out on me.

It happens. But the best thing we can do as journalists is be as professional and prepared as possible. It shouldn't be that hard.

ODDS AND SODS
* Netflix chief content officer Bela Bajaria announced today that John Mulaney will star in a weekly variety show launching in early 2025. There aren't any details on what that might look like, but the deal comes following the success of the streamer's limited run John Mulaney Presents: Everybody's in LA.

* In August, Lionsgate announced plans to launch a Starz/Britbox bundle and today that launched at Starz.com. The bundle is priced at $14.99 a month, reflecting a 25% savings for both apps. I suspect one reason for Starz making this move - aside from the fact it will split from Lionsgate Studios by year's end - is that the subscriber churn rate for Starz's streaming service is generally one of the highest in the industry. 

* Kamala Harris will participate in a town hall with CNN on October 23rd CNN says it has made a similar offer to Donald Trump, but the former president has declined.

* If you wonder why you're seeing so many early season renewals, part of it has to do with the lessons learned from the COVID and Hollywood strikes production delays. With high-profile casts, it's exceptionally difficult to realign everyone's schedule on the fly. So the solution for streamers such as Netflix is to secretly greenlight and produce two seasons of successful shows. And given the shorter season episode orders, shooting two seasons back-to-back is still fewer episodes than an old school broadcast television episodic order. That is apparently what happened with Netflix's The Diplomat, which Netflix announced was receiving a third season ahead of its season two premiere on October 25th. But apparently seasons two and three were shot back-to-back, but not publicly announced until now. 

* Alicia Silverstone is currently filming the new series Irish Blood in Dublin, Ireland. Streamer Acorn TV announced the murder mystery series today and revealed she is playing a hot-shot Los Angeles divorce lawyer searching for her father.

* Netflix's Nobody Wants This has been renewed for a second season. Most notably, former Girls co-showrunner Jenni Konner and former Six Feet Under and Girls executive producer Bruce Eric Kaplan are coming in to run season two. I suspect part of the change has to do with the complaints about how Jewish women were portrayed in the debut season.

* Nick and Vanessa Lachey are hosting the Love Is Blind Season 7 reunion, which premieres Wednesday, October 30th, on Netflix.

* The Critics Choice Awards will celebrate its 30th anniversary on January 12th with a move from The CW to E! after seven years. The show will be hosted by Chelsea Handler.

* A new season Love & Marriage: Huntsville will premiere Saturday, November 2nd on OWN.

WHAT'S NEW TONIGHT AND TOMORROW

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 10TH:
Breaking Silence: The Maria Soledad Story (Netflix) 
Caddo Lake (Max)
Citadel: Diana Series Premiere (Prime Video)
Expedition Amazon (NatGeo)
Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist Series Finale (Peacock)
Fleeting Lies (Mentiras pasajeras) Series Premiere (Hulu)
Her Fatal Fling (LMN)
Love Is Blind: Habibi Series Premiere (Netflix)
Nina, The Starry Bride Series Premiere (Crunchyroll)
Outer Banks Season Premiere (Netflix)
Teacup Series Premiere (Peacock)
Roller Jam Series Premiere (Max)
The Hunt For The Chameleon Killer (Sundance)
The Life And Movies Of Erşan Kuneri Season Two Premiere (Netflix)
Tomb Raider: The Legend Of Lara Croft Series Premiere (Netflix)

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11TH:
Daddy's Head (Shudder)
Disclaimer Series Premiere (Apple TV+)
Dragon Ball Daima Series Premiere (Crunchyroll/Hulu)
Heather McMahan: Breadwinner (Hulu)
In Her Place (Netflix)
Latinos In Hollywood: Owning Our Destiny (ABC)
Lonely Planet (Netflix)
Mr. Crocket (Hulu)
Outside (Netflix)
Spellbound (Hulu)
Sweetpea Series Premiere (Starz)
The Confidante Series Premiere (Max)
The Last Of The Sea Women (Apple TV+)
Uprising (Netflix)

SEE YOU ON FRIDAY!