Too Much TV: Your TV Talking Points For Wednesday, November 10th, 2021
When you don't have the money for dubbed audio, you get Gilbert Gottfried
Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Wednesday, November 10th, 2021. I'm writing this from the Twin Cities, where AllYourScreens HQ is trying to come to terms with a possible dusting of snow here later this week.
SO WHAT TO DO WITH 'THE LOST SYMBOL?'
Thanks to pandemic delays and a lot of behind-the-scenes chaos, Peacock has struggled to roll out a distinctive lineup of original programs. It's a perfect storm of challenges: a lack of buzzworthy new content, a subscription base who seems to have a lackluster attraction to Peacock's new content and an overall sense that the Comcast-owned streaming service remains in the category of "a not yet essential streaming service."
The original series Dan's Brown's The Lost Symbol was supposed to help change that. The series is prequel to the Robert Langdon film series which began with The DaVinci Code. It's IP that isn't a reboot, it's a breezy, mythology-filled premise that should be catnip for a certain subset of viewers. And yet, it doesn't seem to have found the audience Peacock executives were hoping for. Once the series premiered to lackluster reviews in September, the social media buzz around the show basically disappeared. The series has so far released eight of its ten season-one episodes and you would be hard-pressed to find anyone talking about it. Which is a shame, because it is a smart, well-acted show that has always felt more like a broadcast television series than a streaming service highlight.
So it was interesting to see NBC air the series premiere Monday night as a test. And what was the audience response?
As Rick notes, Peacock doesn't publicly release any viewing data, although some numbers estimated by Parrot Analytics seem to suggest the show is modestly popular with Peacock subscribers:
What this demonstrates is that La Brea is sitting in the sweet spot of being a retention driver — those who watch New Amsterdam may be sticking around to watch La Brea — but is also an acquisition driver. The Lost Symbol has significantly less demand than La Brea; The Lost Symbol showed 11.22x the average demand of TV shows in the United States as of October 27th, which is outstanding but much closer to the “good” category.
La Brea was sitting at 17.32x the average demand, slightly higher than The Lost Symbol and edging closer to "exceptional" with each new episode. People could be signing up for La Brea, and then tuning into The Lost Symbol through the platform's recommendations or homepage placement, but that overlap is vital for increased session time (the amount of time someone spends on an app per use case), increased engagement (the amount of time people engage with the app overall), and increased awareness of catalog titles.
So if you are an executive at Peacock, what do you do with The Lost Symbol? It hasn't been a breakout hit, but it is getting some traction. And the NBC numbers are decent, given that episode has been available on Peacock for nearly two months and the network didn't really promote the special showing.
It's hard to make that decision without having any viewing numbers from Peacock to use as context. But if executives are considering picking up the show for a second season (and given the streamer's bench, that is probably a good bet), it seems as if there are a couple of things you can do to drive viewers to the current season and hopefully to season two. The biggest play would be to continue to air episodes on NBC in hopes the larger broadcast audience will discover the show. But given the network's schedule, that feels less likely.
A second scenario would be to push the season full of episodes to Comcast-owned USA. Which doesn't have a lot of places to put it and network executives would probably balk at getting a second-hand show. But of all the Comcast-owned networks, that would be the best fit.
I suspect the show can find an audience for a second season, if the series can just get out in front of enough newer viewers. Of course, that is never an easy task. Especially with a show that is considered to have had a disappointing start.
WHEN YOU DON'T HAVE THE MONEY FOR DUBBED AUDIO, YOU GET GILBERT GOTTFRIED
When I interviewed Topic General Manager Ryan Chanatry back in August, one of the things we discussed was subtitles and dubbed audio:
One of the frequent discussions in the industry when it comes to larger streamers such as Netflix is whether or not American audiences are comfortable watching foreign-produced productions. Are they willing to embrace shows that include dubbed audio or subtitles? And it sounds like that isn't necessarily an issue for your subscribers?
So I think we are naturally attracting those viewers who are most inclined to watching subtitles. But the challenge that we're facing is that Netflix and now HBO, to a large extent, are defaulting foreign-langauge shows to dubbing. And setting up the expectation that everything you watch will be available with English audio.
And it's an interesting question that we're exploring. Who is the Money Heist or Call My Agent audience, who will watch a show that has dubbing?. And is that slightly different than the audience who watches subtitled shows? Or is it vastly different? And that's the big challenge for us. We want to bring the most engaging stories from around the world to our service. And I don't want subtitles to get in the way of that.
But right now, I think we're focused on using subtitles, and we'll explore if there's a place for dubbing on the service and how that works in the U.S. over the next year or so.
If you don't have the resources to devote to audio dubbing your content, you can either just try and pretend it isn't an issue. Or you can have fun with the idea and playfully remind subscribers that there is nothing wrong with subtitles.
Topic has embraced the second route and has just announced a campaign with Cameo business to launch a pro-subtitles campaign:
Topic created a series of humorous ads depicting well-known actors and comedians from all over the world to show audiences that if they want to understand who murdered who, who fell in love with who, or who believes a Virgin Mary statue can bleed tears, nobody should deprive themselves of the numerous fantastic films or series, all because they refuse to read words on screen.
The ads feature short snippets of eclectic stars such as Michael Ian Black (Wet Hot American Summer), Gilbert Gottfried (Aladdin), Mary Lynn Rajskub (24), Miriam Margolyes (Harry Potter), Billy Boyd (The Lord of the Rings), Tia Carrere (Wayne's World) and Nathalie Emmanuel (Game of Thrones) giving their uncensored and hilarious thoughts on the importance of subtitles in reaction to social comments
Here is a link to the Gilbert Gottfried video, who seems to have never video chatted on a phone before.
The videos are pretty clever and it's a smart, cost-efficient approach to the problem. I don't know that it will change any minds, but it's certainly a great branding move for Topic.
BRIAN WILLIAMS LEAVING MSNBC AND NBC NEWS
While the move had been rumored for a couple of weeks, NBC News announced Tuesday that Brian Williams has decided not to sign another contract with the network and will exit MSNBC's late night news program The 11th Hour at the end of 2021:
Williams, who currently anchors MSNBC’s 11 PM hour, “has informed us he would like to take the coming months to spend time with his family,” MSNBC president Rashida Jones said in an email to staff Tuesday evening.
Williams has been in contract negotiations with MSNBC in recent months, and a source familiar with those talks said that he expressed a desire to move out of the 11 PM timeslot.
“This is the end of a chapter and the beginning of another,” Williams said in a statement. “There are many things I want to do, and I’ll pop up again somewhere. For the next few months, I’ll be with my family, the people I love most and the people who enabled my career to happen.”
The industry consensus seems to be that the likely replacement for Williams on The 11th Hour is Ali Velshi, who not only hosts his own MSNBC weekend show, but has become the network's go-to primetime anchor fill-in.
FUBO TV TOPS 1,000,000 SUBSCRIBERS
Sports-centric streaming service fuboTV announced on Tuesday that it had reached one million total paid subscribers:
“fuboTV’s record third quarter 2021 results again showcase consistent strong execution in support of our company mission and continued traction towards our long-term growth and margin targets,” said David Gandler, co-founder and CEO, fuboTV. “The company delivered record results during the third quarter of 2021, growing total revenue by 156%, increasing advertising revenue by 147% and delivering subscriber growth of 108%, each compared to the prior year period. Additionally, we added 262,884 net subscribers in the third quarter - more subscribers than added throughout all of 2020.”
Gandler continued: “fuboTV’s achievement of hitting the one million subscriber mark since the third quarter ended is an extraordinary milestone by any measure but particularly remarkable given the momentum of our business over six short years. To put this in perspective, as of the end of the second quarter 2020, we had approximately 286,000 subscribers. And, even at the one million subscriber mark, we believe we are still just scratching the surface of the massive opportunity ahead of us with 72.6 million subscribers still active on traditional pay television.”
ODDS AND SODS
* Sweden has added 350,000 SVOD subscriptions in the last 12 months. In it's first year on the market, new Disney+ subscriptions make up more than half of net growth. However, Netflix remains the most popular service in Swedish households, followed by Viaplay and Disney+. Netflix dominates in households that only subscribe to one service, but the combination of Netflix, Viaplay and Disney+ are the most common in households with more subscriptions.
* Amazon Prime Video Channels has launched in Australia.
SEE YOU THURSDAY!
If you have any feedback, send it along to Rick@AllYourScreens.com and follow me on Twitter @aysrick.