Too Much TV: Your TV Talking Points For Wednesday, August 31st, 2022

In defense of the ignorant viewer.

Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Wednesday, August 31st, 2022.

IN DEFENSE OF THE IGNORANT VIEWER
I am not a MCU super fan. I've seen the Marvel movies and television shows and generally enjoyed them. But I not versed in all of the MCU lore and backstory. And to be honest, the fan service aspect of the Disney+ Marvel shows is something that gets in the way of my enjoyment of the show. I don't want to feel as if I need to have an intimate knowledge of 20 movies, random comics and a few other television shows in order to fully appreciate a new Marvel series. Easter eggs for fans are fine. But any show should stand on its alone without viewers feeling as if they need to do prep work ahead of time.

Phillip Maciak is the TV editor at the Los Angeles Review of Books and he wrote a piece for Slate making this very same point about the new Amazon series Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power:

I haven’t read a word of Tolkien’s original trilogy, and I likewise have never cracked open The Silmarillion. I have no special hatred or aversion to them. That I missed out on that experience as a kid is simply a fact of my life. But that doesn’t mean I’m not a fan. Ralph Bakshi’s 1978 rotoscope-animated The Lord of the Rings was one of only two VHS tapes on the TV cart that got rolled out on rainy recess days when I was in grade school, and it made a huge impression on my adolescent mind. When Peter Jackson’s epic three-part adaptation arrived in the early 2000s, I saw all of them multiple times in the theater, and many more times since with my partner, a fan who carried around a red, leather-bound volume of the trilogy in her Barbie and the Rockers backpack as early as second grade. My fandom, in other words, is based almost entirely on adaptations of Tolkien’s novels rather than the novels themselves. And I’m here to tell you that it’s OK.

FWIW, I make a variation of the same point in my review of the show, which you can read here.

SPEAKING OF 'THE RINGS OF POWER'
This is some expert-level passive-aggressiveness in a headline

THE BATTLE FOR STREAMING TV COMPLETION RATES
One of the key metrics that linear TV executives consider when trying to decide whether to pick up a show for another season is the percentage of viewers who stuck with the show throughout the season. Is good word of mouth growing the audience week-over-week or is a steady stream of people exiting the show every week it airs? It's not a perfect indicator of satisfaction with the show, but it's likely the most accurate on available.

The streaming television equivalent is a show's "completion rate." Roughly speaking, that rate is the percentage of people who finish watching the season within a week or two of starting it. I wrote about this metric a bit in March in this piece laying out some of the factors Netflix uses when it determines whether or not to pick up a series for an additional season:

A primary Netflix metric is called the "adjusted view share," which is a combination of more than 30 factors that attempt to assign an overall "value" for any piece of content. An example I was given was that it's possible to track which content was most watched by brand new subscribers last month. That content would be considered more valuable because it presumably was one of the reasons why viewers subscribed. But if those viewers exit after a month or two, that lessens the value of the content. The assumption being that some percentage of the canceled subscriptions came from people who subscribed primarily for a specific show.

It depends on where people are watching. A show that is more popular in a region such as the U.S., where the ARPU (average revenue per user) is higher has a greater value than one that tracks more in regions where the ARPU is lower. Although that indicator is weighted less than some others and whether the content is attracting subscribers in a territory where subscriber retention costs are high also factors into the equation. Netflix also tracks how many people complete a TV show within a week, the percentage of people who rewatch a series (although if the number is too high, it's discounted as possible fan manipulation). And there are many more. Each of the factors is weighted differently and the weighting can apparently change as the company's strategy evolves.

Kasey Moore at Whats-On-Netflix.com has a piece today examining the completion rates of some Netflix shows, based on data provided by the London-based analytics company Digital I. The data comes from their European panel, and while that might vary somewhat from the U.S. reaction, it still provides a lot of fascinating insight. And besides, there isn't nearly enough European viewing data available, so this is very welcome:

This data became extremely helpful when trying to decipher why First Kill was canceled just last month. The cancelation led to many headlines that tried to pick out what happened to get the show canceled. However, as Digital I has observed, shows with completion rates below 50% are often subject to cancelation.

Vahdati added this wasn’t always the case saying, “when Netflix was releasing a high number of Original series each month, there would sometimes be cancellations of shows with relatively high completion rates.”

If we break down the completion rate for First Kill, you can see of those that started episode 1, only 66.94% went on to watch the second episode. That drops even further by the end of season 1, with only 43.11% finishing the final episode.

MOST ANTICIPATED SHOWS FOR SEPTEMBER 2022
Whip Media just released a bunch of data and the slide that stuck out at me was this list of most anticipated TV titles for September.

As you might expect, Amazon's The Rings Of Power and Disney+'s Andor were numbers one and two on the list of new shows. But the next three on the list were broadcast television titles:

ODDS AND SODS
* Paramount+ is bundling its platform with Showtime. In U.S. it is $7.99 per month for the Essential (with ads) plan and $12.99 per month for the Premium (no ads) plan. At the end of September, the price goes up to $12/$15.

* Showtime has promoted unscripted executive Zoe Rogovin to SVP of Programming. She will continue to report to Vinnie Malhotra, the EVP of Non-fiction Programming.

* Former CNN chief Jeff Zucker and former MSNBC topper Phil Griffin will take part in an 'An Intimate Conversation on Politics and the Media' moderated by Michael Smerconish at an October 7th event in Philadelphia backed by The Bipartisan Policy Center.

* According to the Wall Street Journal, Disney+ will soon offer T-shirts, themed accessories, and children’s costumes associated with some of its shows. Users would scan a QR code on the screen that links to the Shop Disney website.

TWEET OF THE DAY

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

Club América vs Club América (Netflix)
CMT Storytellers: Darius Rucker (CMT)
DC's Stargirl Season Premiere (The CW)
Family Secrets (Netflix)
Guy's Ultimate Game Night Series Premiere (Food)
I Came By (Netflix)
Kill Fist (Netflix)
No-Recipe Road Trip With the Try Guys Series Premiere (Food)
Tales From The Explorers Club Series Premiere (Discovery)
The Croods: Family Tree (Hulu/Peacock)

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

SEE YOU THURSDAY!

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