Too Much TV: Your TV Talking Points For Wednesday, September 25th, 2024

The low-hanging fruit of streaming engagement

Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Wednesday, September 25th, 2024:

THE LOW-HANGING FRUIT OF STREAMING ENGAGEMENT
One of the ongoing challenges for any major streamer is increasing subscriber engagement. Figuring out ways to keep viewers happy and subscribed. Netflix notably does it with a combination of a steady stream of new content as well as an increasing amount of related mobile games, merchandise and events. But if you're a streamer that doesn't have that kind of original programming budget, what do you do?

One of the growing trends in the TV world are "Rewatch" podcasts. A few cast members from some well-known older show get together to watch and comment on episodes of their show. Some of the podcasts are independently produced, some are put together by the cast members themselves. But as far as I can tell, none of the streamers have moved into this space.

For instance, the "Catching Up With The Camdens" rewatch of 7th Heaven episodes launched this week. And I have no idea why it's on YouTube (where it's only received about 30,000 views so far) instead of on Paramount+, where the series is streaming. This would be a cheap show to produce, with the majority of the cost going to the participating cast. And if you limited viewing of it to the streamer, it's a nice subscriber retention idea.

There are a number of shows that deserve this treatment and for whatever reason, the streamer just haven't been willing to give this a try. And this idea would work just as well - or better - with one season shows that have a cult following.

THE STATE OF STREAMING IN INDIA
There were two conflicting looks at India's streaming video business today and they approach the landscape from two different points of view.

Speaking at the APOS conference in Bali, Monika Shergill, Vice President of Content at Netflix India, told the audience that Netflix had hit its stride in India, but that the streamer has struggled to ramp up supply to meet subscriber demand. The company has been doing training workshops with local production staff in an effort to increase the availability of crews. In part because there are productions that have had to be delayed because the crews and production space wasn't available.

On the other hand, "The Streaming In India" newsletter has a piece on how Netflix and Prime Video's dominance in India are pricing competitors out of the market for projects with top names in the business:

Speaking with industry insiders, it becomes evident that this near-duopoly in the Indian streaming rights market for mainstream movies’ streaming rights has an impact on the entire film economy. The limited options outside of Netflix and Prime Video lead to constraints for filmmakers, especially when it comes to paying the hefty fees that top stars demand. For instance, actors like Ranbir Kapoor are known to charge as much as ₹75 crore per film, making the economics challenging without multiple strong bidders in the OTT rights market. This lack of competition ultimately distorts the economic landscape for big-budget films and raises the question: Are we living in a Netflix financed rights acquisition “bubble”?

India is a growing streaming video market, but it's not one that most American-based reporters understand all that well. It's a complicated story and one that is going to influence how much money is spent on production in the U.S. Right now, I just feel as if the more I learn, the more confused I become.

HOW TIK TOK IS THE NEW TV
While this title of the post is a bit hyperbolic (Tik Tok is just the newest alternative to TV), this piece in the FWIW Substack makes some interesting points:

For starters, Gen-Z media consumers use their phones to watch content like it’s TV. They are not “cord cutters.” They never had a cord in the first place. In fact, Gen-Z spends less time watching traditional TV than any other age group, while Gen-Z TikTok users spend an average of 77 minutes per day on the app. TikTok’s growing market share of Gen-Z attention is even coming for the big streamers like Netflix – more than 50% of Gen-Z have canceled a streaming service in the past 6 months, and 66% would prefer watching TikTok over streaming. 

Subway Takes and Track Star are just two examples of the types of shows that we believe are ushering in a new era of entertainment. There are many more, including Boy Room and Street Hearts, from upstart short-form production studios that are bringing MTV-style game show production to the app. Blue-chip brands and advertisers like Google, Amazon, and McDonald’s have already taken notice of this trend, using these influential platforms to promote their products. As this space matures, we believe Hollywood will as well – adapting short-form series for the big screen (see Hot Ones on Netflix and The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives on Hulu for a taste of what might be to come). 

I AM SO OLD
You know that you are aging when formative things from your younger years have now become relics that are being celebrated with official Historical Markers. That's the case with the early online platform Compuserve, which provided me with my first digital job back in the mid-late 1990s. And in 2024, it's like saying that back in the day I used to work as an 8-track tape salesman:

In those days, users would sit at their computers and dial a phone number with their modems, sometimes placing an actual phone receiver onto the device.

"The modem would make this hellacious noise. It would kind of screech and squawk," Tweney said.

Once the connection was made, users would see the CompuServe menu.

"You'd be online and on your computer screen was a bunch of text," Tweney said. "So you'd get a menu of options that would appear as green text on your black monitor and you would type commands or press numbers to indicate which menu item you wanted."

The speed was slow—about 30 or 40 million times slower than what we’re used to today.

When I joined, most people didn't have internet access and Compuserve charged $6 an hour for access. The best part of working for a company that ran some of their forums is that I received an account with unlimited free access. The other thing I remember was that even though we had forums for TV and movies, the most popular one was the true crime forum, where people argued over the facts of obscure true crime cases. Which may the precursor of the true crime boom on television.

TWEET OF THE DAY

ODDS AND SODS
* As you might expect, Jeopardy! contestants can be a squirrely bunch. But this piece in Slate is kinda nuts, with claims of being cancelled and gameshow apartheid. 

* Here are the global TV and streaming video stories that should be on your radar for Wednesday, September 25th, 2024.

* NBC10 in Boston has laid off five people from its "special projects" team, including several investigative reporters.

WHAT'S NEW TONIGHT AND TOMORROW

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25TH, 2024:
* Chicago Fire Season Thirteen Premiere (NBC)
* Chicago Med Season Ten Premiere (NBC)
* Chicago PD Season Twelve Premiere (NBC)
* Court Cam Season Premiere (A&E)
* Everybody Still Hates Chris Series Premiere (Comedy Central)
* Grotesquerie Series Premiere (FX) 
* Jailbreak: Love On The Run (Netflix)
* Mama Cake Series Premiere (Hulu)
* Midnight Family Series Premiere (Hulu)
* Mr. McMahon (Netflix)
* The Floor Season Two Premiere (Fox)
* The Judge From Hell Series Premiere (Hulu)
* The Masked Singer Season Twelve Premiere (Fox)
* Women In Blue Season Finale (Apple TV+)

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26TH, 2024:
* An Invisible Victim: The Eliza Samudio Case (Netflix)
* A True Gentlemen (Netflix)
* Bangkok Breaking: Heaven And Hell (Netflix)
* Crime Scene Kitchen Season Three Premiere (Fox) 
* Colin From Accounts Season Two Premiere (Paramount+)
* Defending Europe Series Premiere (NatGeo)
* Doctor Odyssey Series Premiere (ABC)
* Dreaming Of A Freaking Fairy Tale Series Premiere (Paramount+) 
* Everything Calls For Salvation (Netflix)
* Grey's Anatomy Season Twenty-One Premiere (ABC)
* Hell's Kitchen Season Twenty-Three Premiere (Fox)
* Killer Heat (Prime Video)
* Love On The Danube: Kissing Stars (Hallmark+)
* 9-1-1 Season Eight Premiere (ABC)
* Nobody Wants This Series Premiere (Netflix) 
* Previously Saved Version (Netflix)
* Tea Time Teddy Bears Series Premiere (Peacock)
* The Jane Mysteries: Too Much To Lose (Hallmark+)
* The Tower (BritBox)
* 2024 People’s Choice Country Awards (NBC)
* Wisting (Sundance Now)

SEE YOU ON THURSDAY!