Too Much TV: Your TV Talking Points For Wednesday, September 11th, 2024

More pointless bundling, part 223

Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Wednesday, September 11th, 2024:

REMEMBERING 9/11
Every year since 2002, I have posted this 9/11 remembrance of Bill Meehan, a Market Strategist for Cantor Fitzgerald who had a big impact on me during a difficult time of my life:

But I think my strongest memory of Bill Meehan was a conversation I had with him the Friday before I was leaving to get married. He usually talked to me from his home first thing in the morning, and as you can imagine, the conversation sometimes strayed far from the topic of Wall Street.

I was taking ten days off work, and I joked that being gone that long was going to "make my boss crazy." Bill paused, and told me that I had to remember that everything we talked about was just numbers. What really mattered, he told me, was friends and family. "Getting married was the best decision I ever made," he said. "And having some good friends and family you love....don't ever let work distract you from what's important."

BUNDLING TALK, PART 236
Puck's William Cohen is reporting today that Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav and Paramount Global interim Co-CEO George Cheeks have been discussing a possible merger of the streaming services Max and Paramount+. The piece quotes Zaslav's frequent argument that the future of the major streaming services is bundling, which he sees as the "best way to combat the tech giants."

Zaslav has been proclaiming this publicly and on background to journalists for more than a year and Paramount+ has been frequently mentioned as a possible bundling partner. And while I'm sure Zaslav would like to see it happen, the fact that he sees consolidation as his best path forward tells you everything you need to know about his limited strategic vision.

There are a lot of potential downsides to a merger. Smaller ARPU for the partners and absolutely no guarantee that it would help with churn. But one thing a bundling between the two services would do is provide another stream of live sports content for Max and by extension, the proposed sports-centric streamer Venu.

Maybe this will happen. But it seems unlikely at best. And it is almost certain to provide a lot less synergy and revenue than Zaslav and Cheeks are planning for.

AN INTERVIEW WITH THE DIRECTOR OF 'ROAD DIARY: BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN AND THE E STREET BAND
I don't know that I would consider myself a Bruce Springsteen super fan. He has certainly made music that I didn't particularly enjoy, including his ill-advised Woody Guthrie phase. But I've spent most of my adult life aging along with him. When I was a freshman in high school, I ran away from home and ended up in Chicago for a few days. I talked myself into the Quiet Knight to see The Persuasions, but also caught the opening act, a young and raw Bruce Springsteen and his band. I've been lucky enough to be in the right place to see some iconic shows of his over the years, so it's been interesting to watch him wrestle with his mortality at the same time I find myself doing the same thing in my life.

There is a new documentary coming to Hulu in October about his most recent tour and I recently had the chance to speak with Thom Zimny, who has worked with Bruce for 24 years and also directed this project. The full interview won't post on AllYourScreens until Friday, but I wanted to give you a sneak peek at an excerpt:

You mentioned talking to the fans and there are a couple of things in the documentary that seem to at least obliquely address questions some fans have had about the tour, one of which is the set list. It is fairly static in this tour, which is a big change from past tours and it was interesting to watch the segment about the decision-making behind that move.

As Bruce is talking about it, as the band is talking about the set list, you are also cutting to some earlier performance footage of the band from the 70s and 80s. And I finally realized that the way the set list is carefully constructed makes perfect creative sense. In baseball, there are fastball pitchers who just dazzle everyone with their power and their speed. But as they get older, they need to mix it up. Learn new pitches. Use their experience to play with the expectation of the batters.

And Springsteen is at the point, the band is at the point where they need that slider. They need to mix it up. He can't run around stage all night any more, so he needs some other way to create that tension with the audience. And he's using the set list, and the story that it tells as a way to do it.

I think the set list serves as a vehicle to explore the history of Bruce's songwriting, but also to tell the viewer that this is a storyteller. This is a man creating an emotional arc with a group of songs. This is not just a concert that's coming back after the world was shut down from the pandemic.

These songs, when placed together in a certain way, are creating an emotional space that people are connecting to, and also it's a conversation that Bruce is having with his audience. That's what I started to see when he pieced together these songs.

And when you're looking at footage, sometimes you get obsessed about something, and you don't quite know why. And one of the things I really loved was seeing Bruce on the rehearsal day list the songs he wanted to practice. And in that list you you get a sense of not only the vast body of work that he's created, but a repeated story, a theme coming up, and when it's grouped with new groups of songs, from example, Letter To You, you suddenly realize that much like the Broadway show, he was crafting a a musical narrative.

And that, to me, was something I wanted to chase and try to explain to an audience, and also use as a vehicle to expand upon his themes, his themes of mortalities, themes of brotherhood and friendship and the 50 years with the band. Bruce's energy is that he's in one foot in the past, looking at things and processing and one the other foot in the moment, getting ready for another tour. That's an energy you just try to straddle and capture on with your cameras. And it's not always easy to explain verbally.

It is a surprising documentary in many ways and it's also accessible enough that I think even casual Springsteen fans will find it worthwhile.

A GREAT LOOK AT THE PROCESS OF DIRECTING TELEVISION
I recently ran across the Substack

Cento

, which describes itself this way:

Cento is a publication designed to deepen and expand the conversation around creativity and mindset. It features essays, journalism, and interviews with artists, coaches, executives, and others speaking to their unique insight, process, psychology, and discovery.

I mention it here not just because the newsletter makes for a fascinating read, but because Steph Balzer has a really fascinating interview with Julie Ann Robinson, who has directed 17 television pilots, including Bridgerton:

What have you learned about transitioning from directing a film back to your personal life? 

The transition is the hardest thing for me, saying goodbye to a project, the people, and the environment. For various reasons, this last time was particularly tough. I've considered what I'm asking my body and brain to go through, and I think I've come out of it with a gentleness towards myself. Before I would think, “Ok, I've directed ‘Bridgerton.’ Let's get back to the production company I run … how are we doing with all the shows in development, we've got to do this and this and this.” Whereas now I'm saying, “Be nice to yourself. This is going to take some time.” I used to think it was a sign of weakness that I found these transitions hard, but now I'm like, no, just forgive yourself.

One of the reasons why I really enjoyed this interview was that it focused on the personal side of the business, the emotional nuts-and-bolts of what it's like to do the job. When I do interviews, I'm much less interested in talking about what it was like working with someone or other predictable questions that everyone asks. My hope is to do an interview that sparks the same response from readers that I had when I read this piece: "Wow, this is a story I haven't read before."

ODDS AND SODS
* I recently did a video interview with Wendie Malick and Genevieve Angelson about the new Hallmark+ series The Chicken Sisters. And among other things, they talked about what it was like to work in an ensemble that is focused on its female characters.

* Lifetime is in early development on Christmas In Pine Valley, an original movie followup to the long-running ABC daytime drama All My Children.

* Here are some images of James Earl Jones from his 1966 stint on the daytime drama As The World Turns.

* The latest Dateline clip show, Dateline: The Smoking Gun, will premiere Thursday, October 3rd on Oxygen.

* Diginet Cozi TV is adding The King Of Queens to its lineup and to mark the event, the network has created a supercut video that includes one second from every episode of the series. 

WHAT'S NEW TONIGHT AND TOMORROW

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11TH, 2024:
A Closer Look With Seth Meyers Primetime Special (NBC)
Boxer (Netflix)
Los Chavez Series Premiere (Hulu)
Seoul Busters Series Premiere (Hulu)
Technoboys (Netflix)
The Circle Season Seven Premiere (Netflix)
2024 MTV Video Music Awards (MTV)

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 12TH, 2024:
AI And The Future Of Us: An Oprah Winfrey Special (ABC)
Ángel Di María: Breaking Down the Wall (Netflix)
Billionaire Island Series Premiere (Netflix)
Colin Jost And Michael Che Present: New York After Dark (Peacock)
Emily In Paris Season Four Part Two Premiere (Netflix)
Into The Fire: The Lost Daughter (Netflix)
Midnight At The Pera Palace (Netflix)
Mommy's Stolen Memories (LMN)
The Old Man Season Two Premiere (FX)
The Tailor Of Sin City Series Premiere (Sundance TV)

SEE YOU ON THURSDAY!