Too Much TV: Your TV Talking Points For Friday, November 5th, 2021

It's Friday and it has been a long week....

Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Friday, November 5th, 2021. I'm writing this from the Twin Cities, where AllYourScreens HQ is still battling the flu. I felt better for a couple of days, but Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were rough. Which is why there were a couple fewer newsletters this week. But I did get to spend lots of hours catching up on my sleep. On the upside, I got the opportunity yesterday to get another COVID test (I was negative again).

DAVID ZASLAV AND REPORTING ON CONVENTIONAL WISDOM
I'm a journalist who does not have an unlimited research budget. So I am careful about which newsletters I subscribe to because I have to be. But when Puck announced that ex-Hollywood Reporter reporter Matthew Belloni had joined the company, I instantly subscribed. Because Belloni is the Chuck Todd of Hollywood: someone who has extensive industry connections and is able to accurately reflect the insider, conventional wisdom of the Hollywood executive class.

Belloni's latest edition of his "What I'm Hearing.." newsletter mostly focuses on Discovery head David Zaslav and it really provides a great look into how Hollywood's establishment sees the man who seems to be one his way to combining Discovery and Warner Media into one massive entertainment giant:

Despite having never spent time on a studio lot until recently, Zaslav is apparently getting good at the Hollywood thing, holing up in a rear patio booth at the Polo Lounge, staying current on Warner movies and shows (recent faves: HBO’s Succession, of course, and Max’s The Other Two), and declaring that he’ll be an out-and-about presence in L.A. like he’s been in New York and the Hamptons. Zaslav spent his career building relatively unsexy television businesses on the periphery of traditional Hollywood, so now he kinda feels like the chubby small-town kid who goes off to college, gets totally jacked, and moves to the big city to date the girls who never took him seriously back home. (To the extent that one of the best-paid C.E.O.s in media, or any other business, can be said to have been second-tier.) 

I am fascinated by Zaslav's apparent desire to be seen as someone traveling at the upper levels of the entertainment and business establishment. There have been several recent profiles of him that focus on his well-known friends and how important he is in the media landscape. Even the sources used in this piece seem to be attempting to frame Zaslav as some new era Hollywood tycoon. Which I suppose is a change from the public perception of Jason Kilar and John Stankey. But this narrative seems to conflate "powerful insider" with "artist friendly executive." And if you think I am exaggerating, here is another snippet from Belloni's piece:

Endeavor’s Ari Emanuel and CAA’s Bryan Lourd seem to be jockeying to position themselves as Zaslav’s consigliere in Los Angeles, hosting parties to better acquaint the media C.E.O. most associated with cheap reality shlock and D.I.Y. programming with the real talent that fuels the Warner businesses. Lourd’s private dinner at his Beverly Hills home last week drew Warren Beatty, Chris Hemsworth, Greg Berlanti, the Russo brothers, Legendary’s Mary Parent, Taika Waititi, Netflix’s Tendo Nagenda, Paul Thomas Anderson, Alejandro Inarritu, and Sean Penn—but, interestingly, no Warners executives. The party went late. 

But the most important part of the piece is this glimpse into what Belloni thinks will happen to the HBO Max and Discovery+ streaming services after the proposed merger takes place:

The involvement of Mayer, an architect of Disney’s streaming strategy, suggests Zaslav’s first priority is figuring out how to best deploy the Discovery and Warner assets into either separate, stand-alone streaming services or, more likely, a combined, supersized HBO Max—or whatever it ends up being called. They could stay the course and try to fix the name confusion with better marketing. But HBO shouldn’t be in the name, in my opinion; HBO should be a tile within a larger, global service dubbed WarnerMax or Max+ or just Max, alongside tiles for Discovery, CNN+, DC Comics, Turner Sports, Food Network and other sub brands, similar to Disney+. Hammer Netflix with franchises, HBO quality, sports and news—the stuff Netflix either doesn’t have or isn’t great at. And don’t confuse the full offering with HBO, which has an amazing brand but turns off a segment of the general population not looking for “elevated” shows.  

All those branded Warner Bros. Discovery tiles, the thinking goes, can then be included in one Max price (less for ads) or sold as add-ons, similar to the Disney “bundle” of D+, Hulu and ESPN+. Zaslav told investors yesterday that fewer than half of Discovery+ subscribers in the U.S. are also believed to be HBO Max customers, “which with the right packaging provides a real opportunity to broaden the base of our combined offering.” Sounds like a bundle to me, but nothing’s been decided, the company says.

If I was a betting man, I would bet the ultimate streaming product will end up being a rebooted HBO Max and a still separate Discovery+. But in the same way that Discovery+ handles the SVOD Magnolia app, customers can opt to continue to pay for a standalone Discovery+. Or they can subscribe to the HBO Max 2.0 and receive the Discovery+ access for free or for a heavily discounted price. Integrating the content from the two services could be done, but it would be an  engineering nightmare. And given that the current HBO Max interface can already feel overcrowded and difficult to navigate, keeping the two services separate feels like a much more elegant solution. Especially since the Discovery+ service looks very different outside North America and combining the two services globally would involved creating multiple versions of the app. 

And then there are the anti-trust concerns:

Perhaps more concerning for Zaslav is whether the Biden administration will piss all over his victory parade. Most analysts have brushed off antitrust concerns, especially since Trump’s Justice Department sued and lost its effort to block the purchase of these same assets by AT&T, a much bigger company than Discovery. But the suit filed this week to stop book publisher Penguin-Random House’s acquisition of ViacomCBS’s Simon & Schuster division likely caused Zaslav to sweat through one of his vests and immediately summon his antitrust lawyers.

I have been consistently arguing that the Discovery/Warner Media merger is bad for consumers. Yes, it's bad for the media business in that the combined company will have an inordinate amount of power in discussions concerning things such as carriage and retransmission negotiations. But that leverage (and the increased cost) is ultimately passed along to consumers, who end up paying the bill for continued media consolidation. 

But it's also important to ask the question: "how does this merger help consumers?" And you would be hard-pressed to come up with a reasonable answer. I'm not convinced that a combined HBO Max/Discovery+ app would be considered a "win" for consumers. And in nearly every other way, this combined company will ultimately only lead to increased costs to consumers. As well the merger's likely incentive for other large media companies to consolidate, in some mistaken belief that size equals innovation and profit.

A QUICK NOTE ABOUT 'GHOSTS'
Being sick this week delayed a couple of pieces, one of which focused on the new CBS comedy Ghosts. That piece will post next week, but the short version is that I'm a fan. I am generally more positive on CBS comedies than a lot of TV critics: for instance, I really enjoy The Neighborhood and Bob Hearts Abishola. But I was all-in on Ghosts from the first time I saw the pilot ahead of last July's TCAs. It's funny, distinctive and unlike anything else on broadcast television right now. 

I certainly wasn't the only person that wondered if the CBS audience would embrace such an off-brand comedy. But the show seems to be doing well enough to justify an eventual second season pick-up. Which in this environment is more than enough to qualify as a success.

A BIT OF THE TWEEK IN THE PHILO TV UX
The Philo TV UX received a bit of an update recently, and one of the changes took away one of my favorite things about the service. Previously, subscribers could "look back" two days and watch programs that had aired in the past 48 hours by simply scrolling back in the channel listings. That option seems to have disappeared and looking around, I don't see any announcement from the company about the change. I've reached out to Philo and will let you know if I find out more.

Speaking of UX issues, I've been using my Apple TV box more in our living room and I noticed a weird quirk with the Netflix app. It doesn't seem to show the daily Top Ten most viewed list in the app and even the "new" side tab looks very different than it does on the web and Roku apps. Has that always been the case? If so, it seems like a weird difference. You can respond to this newsletter or email me at rick@allyourscreens.com.

TWEET OF THE DAY

WAIT....MAYBE *THIS* IS THE TWEET OF THE DAY

ODDS AND SODS
* Nike has filed seven different trademark applications with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office this week, including the words/phrases Nike, Just Do It, Air Jordan, Jumpman, as well as its famous swoosh logo. They indicated these trademarks would be used to make and sell Nike-branded shoes, clothing, and other digital objects in the "Metaverse". It's worth noting that Nike patented branded NFTs in 2019, but has not yet released any.

* Andrew Rosen is moving his media newsletter PARQOR from Substack to The Information as part of that publication's expanding newsletter network. It’s a smart move, especially given that there are few really must-read media newsletters that remain independent. While I have no inside info, I would not be surprised to see the Entertainment Strategy Guy newsletter to eventually end up as part of a newsletter network as well.

* Pluto TV has added two new channels devoted to Lego Kids TV and Rainbow Squad.

* Chicken Soup For The Soul Entertainment owns Crackle Plus, a subsidiary that runs AVOD services such as Crackle, Popcornflix and Truli. The company is set to launch a Chicken Soup For The Soul-branded AVOD later this year. The company says the new service will "carry thousands of hours of women’s lifestyle content as well as thousands of TV shows and movies."

* Discovery+ is premiering the new paranormal special Demon In The White House on November 26th. Feel free to make up your own joke.

* Fox has picked up Fantasy Island for a second season.

SEE YOU MONDAY! 

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